I 


/^KRV  OF  pmciro^ 


A 


TEN    STUDIES 

IN  THE  PSALMS 


BY 


JOHN  Edgar  McFadyen,  M.A.  (Glas.),  B.A.  (Oxon.) 

Professor  of  Old  Testamefit  Literature  a?id  Exegesis^ 
Knox  College,  Toronto 


*«  My  hope  is  in  Thee, 
My  refuge  and  my  fortress, 


My  God,  in  whom  I  trust." 

— (Ps.  xxxix,  /y  xd,  2.) 


NEW  YORK 
YOUNG   MEN»S    CHRISTIAN   ASSOCIATION    PRESS 

1907 


Copyright,  1907,  by 

THE   INTERNATIONAL   COMMITTEE   OF 

YOUNG   MEN'S   CHRISTIAN    ASSOCIATIONS 


Contents 


PAGE 

Preface  ix 

Study  I — The  First  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 3 

2.  The  Character  and  Destiny  of  Good  Men 4 

3.  The  Fate  of  Bad  Men 5 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 6 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 7 

6.  General  Questions 8 

7.  Personal  Questions  and  Points  for  Considera- 

tion    9 

Study  II — The  Eleventh  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 13 

2.  The  Temptation  to  Cowardice 14 

3.  The  Triumphant  Answer  of  Faith 15 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 16 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 17 

6.  Personal  and  General  Questions 18 

7.  Points  for  Consideration 19 

Study  III — The  Twenty-third  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 23 

2.  God  as  Shepherd 24 

3.  God  as  Host 25 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 26 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 27 

6.  Points  for  Consideration 28 

7.  Thoughts  and  Questions 30 

Stud^  IV — The  Thirty-ninth  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 33 

2.  The  Pathos  of  Life 34 

3.  The  Psalmist's  Prayer  for  Pity 35 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 36 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm yj 

6.  Points  for  Consideration ...v 38 

7.  Questions  for  Practical  Life... 39 

V 


VI  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Study  V — The  Forty-eighth  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 43 

2.  The  City  of  the  Great  King 44 

3.  The  Appeal  to  Experience 45 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 47 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 49 

6.  Points  for  Consideration 50 

7.  Questions 51 

Study  VI — The  Forty-ninth  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 55 

2.  The  Futility  of  Riches  at  Death 57 

3.  The  Prospects  of  the  Good  at  Death 58 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 59 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 60 

6.  Points  for  Consideration 61 

7.  Questions 63 

Study  VII— The  Fifty-second  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 67 

2.  The  Fate  of  Arrogance 68 

3.  The  Joy  of  the  Faithful 69 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 71 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm y^ 

6.  Points  for  Consideration 74 

7.  Questions  75 

Study  VIII — The  Nintieth  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 79 

2.  The  Brevity  and  Pathos  of  Human  Life 81 

3.  Prayer  for  Restoration 83 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 85 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 87 

6.  Points  for  Consideration 88 

7.  Questions 90 

Study  IX — The  Ninety-first  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 93 

2.  The  Security  of  the  Faithful 94 

3.  The  Triumph  of  the  Faithful 96 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 98 

$.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 100 

....,.♦  i  ^:  .-f^J^ts  for  Consideration loi 

7.  Questions 103 


CONTENTS  vii 

PAGE 

Study  X— The  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-sixth  Psalm 

1.  The  Text  of  the  Psalm 107 

2.  The  Joy  of  Redemption 108 

3.  Hope  Looks  through  Tearful  Eyes no 

4.  The  Message  of  the  Psalm  for  Us 112 

5.  Paraphrase  of  the  Psalm 113 

6.  Questions  and  Points  for  Consideration 114 

7.  Review  of  the  Ten  Psalms  Studied 116 


Preface 


There  Is,  perhaps,  no  part  of  the  Old  Testament  which'  speaks  so 
simply  and  directly  to  the  universal  heart  as  the  Psalter.  Yet 
even  the  most  familiar  psalms  come  home  to  us  with  increased 
freshness  and  power  when,  by  sympathetic  study,  we  have  traveled 
back  to  the  world  in  which  their  writers  stood,  and  learned  to  look 
out  upon  it  with  their  eyes.  The  short  studies  in  this  volume  are 
an  attempt  to  interpret,  in  this  way,  a  few  of  the  psalms  that  deal 
with  important  aspects  of  the  religious  life,  and  to  show  their  vital 
bearing  upon  the  life  of  to-day.  In  their  doubts,  struggles,  and 
aspirations,  those  ancient  men  are  very  near  us,  and  they  speak  to 
us  with  an  accent  that  is  strangely  modern.  I  have  tried  to  make 
this  plain  in  the  course  of  the  exposition,  and  to  illustrate  their 
kinship  with  us  by  quotation  from  modern  writers. 

The  treatment  of  the  psalms  here  selected  is  expository.  But, 
without  being  didactic  or  homiletic,  I  have  at  the  same  time 
sought  to  make  it  practically  helpful,  by  gathering  up  the  study  of 
each  psalm  in  a  series  of  personal  questions,  which  are  intended 
both  to  carry  the  reader  into  the  heart  of  the  psalm,  and  also  to 
enable  him  to  search  his  own  inner  life. 

I  desire  here  to  express  my  obligation  to  Messrs.  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons  for  their  generous  courtesy  in  allowing  me  to  reprint, 
from  my  volume  on  The  Messages  of  the  Psalmists  in  The  Mes- 
sages of  the  Bible  Series  (1904),  the  paraphrase  of  the  psalms  here 
selected  for  study. 

John  E.  McFadyen. 

Lake  of  Bays,  Muskoka,  August,  1907. 


ix 


STUDY  I 
Cde  iFir0t  psalm 


THE  FIRST  PSALM  3 

First  Day  :  Cl)e  Cept  of  tjt  JJfialm 

O  how  abundantly  happy  is  the  man  who  never  has  walked  as  wicked 

men  have  counselled, 
Nor  stood  in  the  way  frequented  by  sinners, 
Nor  taken  his  seat  in  a  session  of  scoffers ; 
But  whose  delight  is  in  the  fear  of  Jehovah, 
And  who  broods  over  his  law  day  and  night  I 
He  is  like  a  tree  planted  by  water-courses. 
That  brings  forth  its  fruit  when  it  is  due. 
And  its  leaves  do  not  wither ; 
All  that  he  does  he  brings  to  a  happy  end. 

Not  so  do  the  wicked  fare,  not  so ; 
But  like  chaff  are  they,  driven  by  the  wind. 
Therefore  the  wicked  shall  not  stand  in  the  judgment, 
Nor  sinners  in  the  congregation  of  the  righteous. 
For,  while  Jehovah  cares  for  the  way  of  the  righteous, 
The  way  of  the  wicked  shall  perish. 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate   upon   it   carefully,    and   without   the   aid   of   books, 
until  you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


4  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day  :  Sr[)e  Cl)aracter  anU  Destinp  of  (SooU  JHen 

1.  The  first  psalm  has  been  fittingly  called  the  prologue  to  the 
Psalter,  and  it  was  by  a  happy  inspiration  that  this  psalm  was 
chosen  to  introduce  the  book.  In  the  Psalter  many  voices  are  heard 
— voices  of  doubt  and  sorrow — from  men  whose  faith  was  strained 
and  whose  hearts  were  breaking;  from  men  whose  "steps  had  well 
nigh  slipped"  (Ps.  73:2),  and  whose  soul  was  cast  down  and  dis- 
quieted within  them  (Ps.  42:  11).  The  first  psalm  is  the  answer,  by 
anticipation,  to  all  these  laments;  it  expresses  in  advance  the  assu- 
rance that,  despite  all  seeming,  it  is  well  with  good  men,  and  that 
their  fortunes  are  watched  over  by  God. 

2.  The  first  verse  describes  the  good  man  negatively ;  the  second, 
positively ;  the  third  is  a  picture  of  his  bright  destiny.  The  opening 
word  in  the  Hebrew  announces  not  so  much  his  inward  blessedness 
as  his  outward  prosperity;  not  so  much  "Blessed"  as  "O  how  full  of 
happiness !" — the  happiness  being  more  particularly  described  by 
verses  3  and  6.  The  man  who  deserves  and  will  obtain  this  happi- 
ness is,  first  of  all,  he  who  refuses  to  have  anything  to  do  with  bad 
men.  The  bad  men  whom  the  Psalmist  has  particularly  in  view  were 
probably  apostate  Jews,  who  had  come  under  the  influence  of  Greek 
culture,  and  turned  their  backs  upon  the  Jewish  faith.  The  three 
words  used  to  describe  them  and  also  the  Psalmist's  attitude 
towards  them  constitute  a  fine  and  no  doubt  intentional  climax. 
They  are  (i)  wicked  or  ungodly;  (2)  continual  and,  as  it  were, 
professional  sinners;  (3)  scoffers,  men  who  in  their  gatherings — 
"clubs,"  we  might  almost  say — deliberately  ridicule  religion,  its  be- 
liefs, its  duties,  its  consolations,  its  adherents.  In  the  good  man's 
attitude  to  these  fatal  influences  there  is  a  similar  climax:  walking, 
standing,  sitting— each  act  more  deliberate  than  the  last.  These 
words  suggest  the  decline  and  fall  of  a  human  soul.  The  man  who 
deliberately  joins  a  club  of  those  who  meet  to  mock  at  religion  and 
deny  the  moral  order,  is  far  on  the  road  to  ruin  (verse  6). 

3.  As,  negatively,  the  good  man  avoids  bad  company,  so,  posi- 
tively, he  is  a  religious  man ;  "his  delight  is  in  the  fear  of  Jehovah," 
as  we  should  probably  read;  and  he  nourishes  his  religious  life  on 
the  Scriptures— here  called  "the  law  of  Jehovah."  On  this  he  muses, 
meditates,  half  aloud  and  half  to  himself,  by  day  when  he  is  at  work, 
and  at  night,  after  he  has  come  home. 

4.  Such  a  man  is  like  a  tree,  deep-rooted,  well-watered,  fruitful 
and  fair — a  very  striking  picture  to  one  who  remembers  how  dry 
and  parched  was  much  of  the  land  of  Palestine.  Like  such  a  tree 
the  good  man- flourishes  in  all  his  enterprise. 


THE  FIRST  PSALM  5 

Third  Day  :  CI)e  fate  of  ^aH  JHcn  (Sersefi  4-6) 

1.  The  Psalmist  gives  no  detailed  description  of  the  bad  man  as 
he  had  done  of  the  good ;  such  a  theme  is  uncongenial.  He  describes 
not  the  man's  character,  but  his  fate.  And  he  begins  with  a  solemn 
and  emphatic  negative:  "not  so  fare  the  wicked."  After  his  lovely 
description  of  the  green  and  fruitful  tree,  he  continues  with  an  almost 
terrible  simplicity — the  fate  of  the  wicked  is  not  like  that;  no  such 
destiny  is  in  store  for  them. 

2.  They  are  not  like  the  tree,  but  they  are  like  the  chafif.  What 
a  contrast !  The  tree,  substantial  and  fruitful ;  the  chaff,  empty  and 
useless.  But  the  particular  contrast  in  the  Psalmist's  mind  is  be- 
tween the  permanence  of  the  one  and  the  transience  of  the  other. 
The  tree  stands,  not  only  fair  because  fed  from  the  waters,  but  firm 
because  deep-rooted  in  the  ground;  the  chaff  is  driven  to  and  fro 
by  the  wind.  As  the  tree  stands  when  the  winds  begin  to  blow,  so 
shall  the  righteous  stand  when  the  judgment  comes;  but  not  the 
wicked — they  shall  be,  as  it  were,  blown  like  the  chaff  from  off  the 
face  of  the  world.  By  the  judgment  the  Psalmist  does  not  mean 
one  of  the  many  great  crises  in  history,  though  there  would  be  a 
large  measure  of  truth  in  saying  that  in  these  successive  judgments 
the  wicked  do  not  stand;  rather  he  is  thinking  of  the  great  Mes- 
sianic judgment,  which  was  to  purge  the  earth  of  the  wicked,  and 
leave  the  "congregation  of  the  righteous"  unvexed  and  untainted 
by  their  presence. 

3.  The  psalm  closes  with  the  assurance  that  the  destinies  of  men 
are  determined  by  God.  He  is  interested  in,  not  indifferent  to,  the 
moral  attitude  of  men;  and  so  he  knows,  that  is, continually  cares  for, 
watches  over,  the  way  that  the  righteous  go — and  that  is  an  ever- 
lasting way  (Ps.  139:24)  ;  while  he  will  see  to  it  that  the  way  of 
the  wicked  shall  die  out  upon  the  path  of  history,  as  the  tracks  of 
the  caravan  wheels  die  out  upon  the  desert  sands  (cf.  Job  6:  18). 
The  last  verse  sums  up  the  whole  psalm,  but  the  emphasis  falls  par- 
ticularly on  the  last  clause,  as  the  latter  half  of  the  psalm  is  dealing 
with  the  fate  of  the  wicked ;  hence  the  translation  on  page  3. 


6  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  Cl)e  JHefigage  of  t|)e  JJfiialm  for  Win 

1.  There  are  many  incidental  suggestions  of  much  interest  and 
importance  in  the  psalm,  such  as  the  gradual  decline  of  a  soul  that 
has  entered  upon  the  path  of  wickedness;  but  two  thoughts  stand 
out  above  all  the  others:  that  the  difference  in  the  characters  of 
men  will  be  matched  by  a  difference  in  their  destinies,  and  that  the 
study  of  Scripture  must  be  an  element  in,  as  it  is  a  support  of,  the 
good  life. 

2.  The  Psalmist  does  not  recognize  shades  of  distinction  in  human 
character;  he  divides  men  sharply  into  two  classes,  the  righteous 
and  the  wicked.  And  he  affirms  that  the  former  prosper,  while  the 
latter  perish ;  if  that  be  not  obvious  now,  if  in  the  meantime  sinners 
do  stand  in  the  congregation  of  the  righteous,  at  any  rate  it  will  be 
obvious  enough  in  the  judgment.  The  Psalmist  has  no  doubt  about 
that:  the  wind  cannot  blow  away  the  tree,  but  it  can  and  will  most 
certainly  blow  away  the  chaff.  Even  apart  from  the  Psalmist's 
thought  of  the  final  Messianic  judgment,  there  is  a  profound  and 
valuable  thought  in  these  simple  comparisons  with  the  tree  and  the 
chaff.  It  is  this :  goodness  is  permanent,  it  stands  as  part  of  the 
eternal  order,  watched  over  and  conserved  by  God ;  evil  is  imperma- 
nent, there  can  be  no  ultimate  place  for  it  in  the  universe  of  God. 
The  Psalmist  is  very  earnest  about  this;  he  states  it  graphically 
twice;  once  in  comparing  the  wicked  to  chaff  that  is  blown  hither 
and  thither  (wickedness  has  no  root  in  the  universe),  and  again,  in 
asserting  that  the  way  of  the  wicked  dies  out.  The  Psalmist  pic- 
torially  suggests,  rather  than  definitely  teaches,  that  goodness  is  the 
pathway  to  eternal  life,  while  wickedness  is  the  sure  road  to  oblivion 
in  the  ultimate  count  of  things. 

3.  One  mark  of  the  good  man  is  an  earnest  and  continual  study 
of  the  Scriptures.  When  this  psalm  was  written,  probably  a  very 
large  part  of  the  Old  Testament  was  already  in  existence ;  but,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  nineteenth  and  the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth 
psalms,  the  writer  was  thinking  more  particularly  of  the  law — what 
we  now  call  the  Pentateuch.  It  is  very  significant,  however,  that 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  whether  in  larger  or  smaller  compass, 
is  the  one  positive  mark  of  the  good  man  mentioned  in  the  psalm. 
By  this  he  lives.  Scripture  plays  the  same  part  in  his  life  and 
growth  as  the  water  in  the  life  and  growth  of  the  tree  that  is  planted 
by  the  water-courses.  As  the  life-giving  water  brings  out  the  leaves 
and  fruit  upon  the  tree,  so  Scripture  brings  beauty  and  fruitfulness 
into  the  life  of  the  man  who  muses  upon  it  day  and  night. 


THE  FIRST  PSALM  7 

Fifth  Day  :  |)arapbrafie  of  t()e  fjcalm 

The  truly  happy  man  is  he  who  never  entered  on  the  perilous  path 
of  godlessness— that  path  which  begins  in  dallying  with  evil,  and 
leads  by  sure  steps  to  the  deliberate  scorn  of  religion.  But  his  heart 
is  set  upon  the  Scriptures,  and  over  them  he  broods  continually. 
The  destiny  of  such  an  one  is  bright— like  a  tree,  fruitful  and  fair, 
with  roots  that  are  nourished  by  water  from  the  rivulets,  and  leaves 
that  never  fade.     All  that  he  does  he  brings  to  a  happy  issue. 

Far  other  is  the  destiny  of  the  godless.  They  are  light  as  the 
chaff  blown  about  by  the  wind;  and  when  the  winds  of  judgment 
begin  to  blow,  they  shall  not  be  able  to  keep  their  feet,  nor  shall  they 
have  any  place  in  the  assembly  of  the  righteous.  For,  while  Jehovah 
watches  over  the  way  that  the  righteous  takes,  the  way  of  the  godless 
vanishes  out  of  sight. 

Explain  to  yourself  ever>'  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly  mod- 
ern and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


8  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  (General  CBuefiitionfi; 

1.  What  is  the  ideal  of  piety  in  this  psalm? 

2.  Do  you  consider  this  ideal  exhaustive?  If  not,  how  would  you 
supplement  it? 

3.  Is  the  study  of  Scripture  essential  to  piety? 

4.  Which  Scriptures  contribute  m.ost? 

5.  If  to  the  Psalmist  the  law  of  God  was  pre-eminently  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  in  particular  its  "precepts  and  statutes"  (cf.  Ps.  119:  4»  5), 
in  what  parts  does  that  law  receive  its  highest  expression? 

6.  How  far  is  the  correspondence  between  the  character  and  for- 
tunes of  men  observable  in  this  world? 

7.  What  is  the  ground  for  the  general  belief  in  its  ultimate  exact 
correspondence  ? 

8.  "Blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  Jehovah,  and  whose  trust 
Jehovah  is.  He  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  waters,  that 
spreadeth  out  its  roots  by  the  river.  Its  leaf  shall  be  green,  and  it 
shall  not  cease  from  yielding  fruit."     (Jeremiah  17:  7,  8.) 

Assuming  that  there  is  a  literary  connection  between  this  passage 
and  the  psalm,  contrast  the  types  of  piety  presented  by  both — the 
one  rooted  in  trust  on  God,  the  other  in  a  study  of  the  Scriptures. 
Is  there  any  necessary  incompatibility  between  them  ? 


THE  FIRST  PSALM  g 

Seventh  Day  :  |}er0onal  CiueBttans  anU  JJointa  far 
CanfiSiHeration 

1.  What  is  your  personal  attitude  to  influences  that  are  perilous 
to  your  moral  life? 

2.  Do  you  gladly  embrace  every  opportunity  for  the  study  of 
Scripture  ? 

3.  What  has  your  previous  study  of  the  Scripture  done  for  your 
moral  and  religious  life? 

4.  As  you  consider  your  life-history  thus  far,  can  you  point  to 
evidence  that  God  watches  over  the  way  that  you  take? 

5.  If  one  whose  Bible  was  only  part  of  the  Old  Testament  regarded 
the  study  of  it  as  a  matter  of  such  high  and  serious  importance,  how 
much  more  loving  and  earnest  should  our  study  be  who  have  a  New 
Testament  as  well  as  an  Old,  with  its  wonderful  story  of  Jesus,  with 
its  great  words  of  inspiration  and  consolation,  with  its  Luke  15, 
John  14,  I  Corinthians  13,  Revelations  22. 

6.  "The  first  psalm  may  be  said  to  bestow  a  blessing  on  the  liter- 
ary study  of  the  Bible."— i?.  G.  Moult  on,  Literary  Study  of  the 
Bible,  ch.  vi. 

7.  "A  man's  character  is  by  far  the  most  important  part  of  his 
destiny." — Joseph  McFadyen. 

8.  "At  first  sight,  nothing  can  well  appear  more  unnatural  and 
defiant  of  all  fact  than  this  dual  classification  [into  only  two  classes, 
of  good  and  bad,  friends  and  enemies  of  God].  The  moment  you 
attempt  to  apply  it  to  actual  persons,  and  to  walk  through  the  world 
parting,  as  you  go,  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  you  perceive  how  little 
it  answers  to  any  apparent  reality,  and  how  shocking  the  effect  would 
be  of  running  it  sharply  through  life.  The  varieties  of  character, 
and  the  degrees  of  faithfulness,  are  infinite,  and  are  discriminated 
from  each  other  by  the  finest  shades.  *  *  *  Yet,  strange  to  say, 
this  doctrine,  seemingly  so  harsh  in  itself  and  so  impossible  to 
confront  with  experience,  has  by  no  means  been  a  mere  favourite 
with  the  rude  multitude ;  it  has  had  the  most  powerful  hold  of  minds 
capacious,  philosophical,  harmonious,  devout,  and  has  rarely  failed 
to  throw  its  awful  shadow  across  the  holiest  souls.  Evaded  and 
explained  away  by  mediocre  men  and  in  rationalistic  times,  it  is 
gazed  at  with  full  face  by  a  Plato,  a  Dante,  a  Milton,  a  Pascal ;  and 
surely  has  no  ambiguous  expression  in  the  records  of  our  faith. 
How  is  this  contradiction  to  be  resolved?  I  reply:  by  turning  from 
the  outward  to  the  inward  look  of  moral  evil." — Martineau,  Types 
of  Ethical  Theory,  Book  II,  ch.  I:ii  (4). 


STUDY  II 


THE  ELEVENTH  PSALM  13 

First  Day  :  C()e  Cc;;t  of  tlje  JJgalm 

In  Jehovah  have  I  taken  refuge : 

How  can  ye  say  to  me, 

"Flee  to  the  mountains  like  a  bird?  ^ 

For,  see !  the  wicked  are  bending  the  bow,        -^  A^  tf <J-vt>  o^^ji^ 

They  have  fixed  their  arrow  on  the  string, 

To  shoot  in  the  dark  at  the  upright  in  heart. 

When  the  foundations  are  being  torn  down, 

What  has  the  righteous  accomplished?" 


<l/uiu^^h 


Jehovah  is  in  his  holy  temple, 

Jehovah — his  throne  is  in  heaven. 

His  eyes  behold  the  world. 

His  eyelids  test  the  children  of  men. 

Jehovah  tests  the  righteous  and  the  wicked. 

The  lover  of  violence  he  hates  from  his  soul. 

He  will  rain  upon  the  wicked  coals  of  fire  and  brimstone, 

A  scorching  wind  shall  be  the  portion  of  their  cup. 

For  Jehovah  is  righteous;  righteous  deeds  he  loveth: 
The  upright  shall  behold  his  face. 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate  upon  it  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books,  until 
Vou  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


?6t/ 


ovj     vWaT  h->-r<^h>^^M. 


p>^>-r  (X  h*' 


14  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day:  t!LU  Cemptation  ttj  CotoarUice  (^ersefi  l»3) 

1.  This  powerful  little  psalm  is  not  properly  understood  until  it  is 
recognized  that  the  first  three  verses  constitute  the  cowardly  advice 
given  by  his  supporters  to  some  man  of  faith,  while  the  rest  of  the 
psalm  is  his  triumphant  answer.  We  have  no  means  of  ascertaining 
the  historical  occasion  of  the  psalm ;  all  we  know  is  that  the  situation 
is  desperate.  Societyjs,  being  shaken  to  its  foundations ;  its  worthier 
members,  "the  upright  in  heart,"  are  losing  hope;  their  opponents 
are  powerful,  cruel  and  treacherous. 

2.  But  there  is  one  brave,  strong  "man,  who,  amid  the  welter  and 
confusion,  stands  firm  as  a  rock,  and  repudiates  with  indignation 
the  faithless  and  cowardly  counsel  of  his  supporters.  The  source 
and  basis  of  his  confidence  he  expresses  in  the  very  first  word  of  his 
confession:  "Inlehovah  have  I  taken  refuge."  That  was  why  he 
scorned  to  flee,  as  he  was  urged,  to  the  mountains,  like  a  bird.  For 
centuries  the  mountains  had  been  the  refuge  of  the  persecuted;  but 
the  Psalmist  stood  his  ground,  because  he  felt  himself  already  secure 
in  his  God.  Flight  would  have  meant  infidelity.  Even  the  graphic 
picture  of  the  cruel  and  treacherous  designs  of  his  enemies  is  power- 
less to  make  him  swerve  from  his  post  or  his  God.  For,  see!  the 
wicked  have  their  bow  and  arrow  ready  to  let  drive  at  his  honest 
heart ;  but  look  again  I  Jehovah  is  in  his  heavens,  and  the  Psalmist 
is  sure  that  he  will  protect  the  man  who  puts  his  trust  in  him. 

3.  The  last  appeal  of  the  cowards  is  the  subtlest  of  all.  They 
point  out  that  the  foundations,  the  pillars  of  social  law  and  order, 
are  already  being  torn  down,  and  ask  their  steadfast,  righteous  chief, 
with  sad  earnestness,  what,  after  all,  his  righteousness  has  enabled 
him  to  accomplish.  The  world  is  tumbling  to  pieces,  and  he  can 
only  succeed  in  being  buried  beneath  the  ruins.  So  far  was  right- 
eousness from  being  victorious  that  it  had  not  even  been  able  to 
avert  disaster. 


^  4 


THE  ELEVENTH  PSALM  iS 

Third  Day  :  Cl)c  ©rittTnpl)ant  ^nflitocr  of  Jaiti  (^etficg  4=7) 

1.  The  secret  of  the  Psalmist's  steadfastness  is  to  be  found  in  the 
first  word  of  his  answer  to  the  cowardly  plea  for  flight.  It  is 
Jehovah,  twice  repeated.  He  lifts  his  eyes  from  earth  to  heaven, 
from  the  wicked  with  their  bows  bent  and  arrows  strung,  to  his  God 
who,  above  the  vexations  and  confusions  of  this  world,  sits  secure 
upon  his  heavenly  throne,  intently  watching  all  that  goes  on  below, 
and  ready  to  wield  his  terrible  power  in  defence  of  the  outraged 
moral  order. 

2.  God  is  not  indifferent  or  blind,  as  persecuted  men  may  be 
tempted  to  suppose:  *'his  eyes  behold."  And  not  merely  behold, 
but  narrowly  behold — "his  eyelids  scrutinize,  test,  the  children  of 
men."  Yes,  Jehovah— for  the  third  time — tests  the  righteous  and 
the  wicked.  He  does  not  merely  see,  he  cares;  how  deeply,  will  be 
seen  from  the  passion  with  which  he  loves  and  rewards  the  one 
(verse  7),  and  hates  and  destroys  the  other  (verses  5,  6).  We 
must  not  forget  that  we  are  reading  the  Old  Testament. 

3.  The  last  two  verses  describe  in  graphic  terms  the  destiny  re- 
served for  both.  The  fate  of  the  wicked  shall  be  like  that  which 
overtook  Sodom — fire  and  brimstone  (Gen.  19:24).  Jehovah  is 
lord  of  the  elements,  and  from  his  throne  in  the  heavens  he  will 
pour  down  his  fiery  rain  upon  the  evil-doers ;  the  glowing  wind  will 
be  their  portion — here  poetically  represented  as  a  draught  to  be 
drunk.  So  the  Psalmist's  faith  is  justified.  His  God  was  the 
mighty  wielder  of  lightning  and  thunder,  fire  and  wind;  why  then 
should  he  fear  the  miserable  bows  and  arrows  of  his  puny  oppo- 
nents ? 

4.  God  ^s  pledged  by  his  very  nature  thus  to  defend  the  moral^ 
order;  for  he  is  righteous,  and  therefore  necessarily  loves  deeds  of 
righteousness,  whether  we  are  to  understand  by  these  the  deeds  of 
the  men  who  are  faithful  to  him,  or  his  own.  He  loves  to  see  men 
do  them,  and  he  loves  to  do  them  himself.  So  just  as  surely  as 
he  will  punish  the  wicked,  will  he  reward  the  good ;  and  the  reward 
will  take  the  form  of  a  vision  of  himself.  It  is  not  said  how  he 
will  manifest  himself;  the  idea  may  be  that  in  the  defeat  of  the 
wicked  and  the  triumph  of  the  good,  those  who  have  eyes  to  see 
may  behold  God  himself.  He  reveals  himself  conspicuously  in  the 
crises  of  history. 


l6  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  Cl)e  iftcgsaffe  of  i^t  psalm  for  Wm 

1.  This  too  little  known  psalm  strikingly  illustrates  the  intimate 
connection  between  courage  and  faith.  The  Psalmist  refuses  to 
flee,  because  he  knows  that  he  is  safe  where  he  is.  He  refuses  to 
be  terrified  by  the  powerful  and  treacherous  assaults  of  earth,  because 
he  knows  that  he  can  count  on  the  invisible  resources  of  heaven. 

2.  Conversely, cowardice  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  a  lack  of  confidence 
in  God.  The  coward  is  one  who  has  no  vision  of  God  upon  his 
throne.  The  sight  of  the  deadly  arrow  upon  the  bow-string  strikes 
a  chill  into  his  heart,  because  he  has  no  deep  faith  that  the  destinies 
of  men  are  in  the  hands  of  God.  He  runs  because  he  cannot  stand ; 
he  cannot  stand  because  he  has  no  sense  of  divine  support.  As  his 
refuge  is  not  in  the  invisible  God,  he  must  find  it  in  some  visible 
thing,  like  the  mountains.  To  abandon  one's  post  is  therefore,  in  one 
aspect,  to  abandon  one's  faith  in  God.     Cowardice  is  faithlessness. 

3.  The  foundations  of  the  world  are  well  and  deeply  laid  and 
there  need  be  no  fear  of  their  ultimate  destruction.  God  is  in 
heaven,  watching  and  guiding  the  great  historical  movements,  bring- 
ing order  out  of  confusion,  and  quiet  after  storm.  What,  therefore, 
are  bows  bent  by  the  wicked  and  arrows  set  upon  the  string  for 
their  cruel  flight,  to  him  on  whose  side  fights  the  God  of  the  storm? 
What  is  the  darkness  that  seems  to  shield  schemes  of  wickedness 
to  him  on  whom  streams  light  from  God's  own  face?  What  is  the 
seeming  shattering  of  foundations  to  him  whose  foundation  is  God? 


THE  ELEVENTH  PSALM  17 

Fifth  Day  :  {)arapl)ra0e  of  t^t  Pfialtn 

My  God  is  my  refuge.  Why  then  do  ye  tell  me  to  flee,  like  a 
bird,  for  refuge  to  the  hills?  Ye  seek  to  make  me  play  the  coward. 
Look,  ye  tell  me,  the  godless  are  just  about  to  shoot.  They  are 
bending  their  bow.  Their  arrow  is  already  on  the  string,  to  be 
secretly  shot  at  the  upright.  The  pillars  of  law  and  order  are  being 
torn  down ;  and  what  has  the  good  man,  for  all  his  virtue,  been  able 
to  accomplish? 

Such  is  your  cowardly  speech;  but  it  does  not  affright  me.  For 
my  God  is  just  and  omnipotent;  he  sits  enthroned  in  his  heavenly 
palace.  His  eyes  wander  over  the  earth;  he  watches  and  weighs 
the  deeds  of  men — of  the  good  and  the  bad  alike;  and  to  each  he 
will  give  his  due  reward.  With  the  champions  of  wrong,  whom  he 
hates,  he  will  deal  as  he  dealt  with  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  raining 
coals  of  fire  and  brimstone  upon  them,  and  pursuing  them  with  the 
hot  breath  of  the  desert  wind. 

But  a  gracious  destiny  awaits  the  upright ;  for  the  faithful  Jehovah 
loves  to  show  himself  faithful,  and  for  reward  they  shall  behold  his 
face. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly  mod- 
ern and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  best  be  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


i8  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  JJtrfional  anU  (General  (Bumions 

1.  Have  you  ever  been  confronted  with  the  temptation  to  coward- 
ice?   If  so/how  have  you  met  it? 

2.  You  confess  in  church:  "I  believe  in  God  the  Father 
Almighty."    Do  you  really  beheve  this? 

3.  What  is  your  attitude  to  malicious  or  treacherous  opposition? 

4.  Is  there  any  element  in  the  national  or  international  situation 
to-day  that  tends  to  shake  your  faith?  If  so,  in  what  direction 
would  you  look  for  the  strengthening  of  that  faith? 

5.  From  your  knowledge  of  history,  ancient  or  modern,  show  how 
such  a  confidence  as  the  Psalmist  had  has  been  justified. 


THE  ELEVENTH  PSALM  19 

Seventh  Day  :  JJointfi  for  Confiitieration 

I*  "If  the  foundations  be  destroyed,  what  can  the  righteous  do?" 
This  question  of  the  Authorized  Version — true  to  the  spirit, 
though  not  to  the  letter,  of  the  Hebrew — is  often  anxiously  asked 
by  good  men  who  are  afraid  of  the  progress  of  Biblical  criticism, 
and  other  supposedly  dangerous  tendencies  of  modern  life  and 
thought;  but  note  that  it  is  a  coward's  question.  The  true  man  of 
faith  has  his  answer  ready : 

"Jehovah  is  in  his  holy  temple, 
Jehovah — his  throne  is  in  heaven." 

2.  "I  will  build  my  church;  and  the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not 
prevail  against  it.' ' — Matthew  16 :  18. 

3.  In  sight  of  Worms,  Luther's  friends  most  earnestly  entreated 
him  to  return.  "I  will  go  on,"  he  said,  "though  there  were  as  many 
devils  set  against  me  as  there  are  red  tiles  on  yonder  houses." 

4.  "A  safe  stronghold  our  God  is  still, 

A  trusty  shield  and  weapon." — Luther. 

5.  "God's  in  his  heaven — 

All's  right  with  the  world." — Browning, 

It  is  easy  to  believe  this,  when 

"The  year's  at  the  spring 
And  day's  at  the  morn ; 
Morning's  at  seven; 
The  hill-side's  dew-pearled; 
The  lark's  on  the  wing; 
The  snail's  on  the  thorn." 

But  the  true  test  of  faith  is  that  one  should  still  cherish  this  belief, 
when  "the  wicked  are  bending  their  bow,  and  have  set  their  arrow 
upon  the  string,  to  shoot  in  the  dark  at  the  upright  in  heart." 


STUDY  III 


THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM  23 

First  Day  :  2ri)e  Cept  of  tl)e  JJcalm 

Jehovah  is  shepherding  me :  I  want  for  nothing. 

In  grassy  pastures  he  makes  me  He  down ; 

To  waters  of  rest  he  guides  me. 

He  restores  my  soul. 

He  leads  me  in  paths  that  are  straight, 

For  his  name's  sake. 

Yes ;  though  I  walk  through  a  vale  of  deep  gloom, 

I  will  fear  no  ill ; 

For  Thou  art  with  me, 

Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff— 

They  are  my  comfort. 

Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me 

In  the  presence  of  my  foes. 

Thou  hast  anointed  my  head  with  oil, 

My  cup  runneth  over. 

Surely  goodness  and  kindness  shall  pursue  me 

All  the  days  of  my  life ; 

And  I  shall  dwell  in  the  house  of  Jehovah 

Throughout  the  length  of  days. 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate  upon  it  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books,  until 
you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


24  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day:  (But  ag  ^i)ep|)er5  (Serfisec;  X-A) 

1.  The  quiet  beauty  and  simplicity  of  this  psalm  are  apt  to  hide 
from  us  its  real  range  and  depth.  Its  writer  knew  of  grassy  pas- 
tures and  restful  waters;  but  he  had  also  enemies  to  face,  and  he 
knew  what  it  was  to  walk  through  valleys  of  gloom.  It  was  not  for 
nothing  that  the  rod  was  in  the  shepherd's  hand:  it  was  to  beat 
off  the  assaults  that  threatened  the  peace  and  the  life  of  his  sheep. 
The  eyes  that  beheld  with  sweet  satisfaction  the  rod  and  the  staff 
had  often  looked  upon  trouble ;  and  the  consolation  was  real  because 
the  sorrow  had  been  real. 

2.  The  Psalmist  knows  life,  its  struggles  and  its  gloom,  its  perils 
of  the  darkness  and  its  perils  from  the  foe ;  but  he  is  able  to 
sing  us  his  immortal  song,  because  he  also  knows  God.  He  thinks 
of  himself — in  imagery  long  familiar  to  Israel — as  a  silly  sheep,  apt 
to  wander  away  upon  devious  and  dangerous  paths,  hungering  for 
the  green  grass  and  thirsting  for  the  fresh  water,  and  losing  himself 
at  times  in  deep  and  gloomy  ravines.  But  he  thinks  of  his  God  as 
his  Shepherd,  who  knows  where  the  straight  paths  lie,  and  who 
brings  him  out  upon  them ;  who  knows  where  the  grass  and  the 
water  are,  and  who  gently  guides  him  up  to  them.  The  wilderness 
of  life  has  its  sweet  refreshing  spots :  the  good  Shepherd  will  lead 
his  sheep  thither,  and  there  he  will  make  them  lie  down,  to  rest  and 
refresh  themselves. 

3.  But  men,  like  sheep,  need  more  than  food  and  rest.  In  the 
gloomy  ravines  there  lurks  danger:  robbers  and  wild  beasts  are  ever 
ready  to  pounce  upon  their  helpless  and  unsuspecting  prey,  and  the 
poor  sheep  needs  protection.  This  she  finds  in  her  shepherd,  who 
not  only  provides  for  her  need,  but  is  her  defence  against  attack. 
The  danger  may  be  real,  but  so  is  the  shepherd.  "Thou  art  with 
me."  And  the  shepherd  is  as  powerful  as  he  is  tender;  for  he 
carries  in  his  hand  a  great  oak  club  to  beat  off  the  wild  beasts. 
Even  to-day  "many  adventures  with  wild  beasts  occur,  not  unlike 
that  recounted  by  David  (i  Sam.  17:34-36)  ;  for  though  there  are 
now  no  lions  here,  there  are  wolves  in  abundance ;  and  leopards  and 
panthers,  exceeding  fierce,  prowl  about  these  wild  wadies.  They  not 
unfrequently  attack  the  flock  in  the  very  presence  of  the  shepherd, 
and  he  must  be  ready  to  do  battle  at  a  moment's  warning." — 
{Thomson,  The  Land  and  the  Book.)  The  staff  is  different  from 
the  rod :  on  it  the  shepherd  leans ;  with  it  in  various  ways  he  helps 
his  sheep.  So  that  rod  and  staff  together  symbolize  the  power  and 
the  affection  of  the  divine  Shepherd.  Well  might  the  Psalmist  point 
to  them  with  pride  and  gladness,  and  say:  "They  are  my  consola- 
tion." 


THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM  25 

Third  Day  :  (0ot(  as  |)ost  (©crfics  5,  6) 

1.  In  the  first  part  of  the  psalm  God  was  the  shepherd,  and  man 
was  a  sheep.  But  man  is  more  than  a  sheep.  He  who  can  look  up 
into  the  face  of  God  and  say,  "Thou  art  with  me,"  is  God's  friend ; 
and  whether  the  figure  of  God  as  shepherd  be  retained  in  the  second 
half  of  the  psalm  or  no,  at  any  rate  the  Psalmist  describes  himself 
in  more  human  and  less  pastoral  terms. 

2.  He  is  a  man  who  has  enemies — hunted  relentlessly  by  the  blood- 
avenger  across  the  cruel  desert  till  he  reaches  the  kindly  shelter  of  a 
tent.  Once  there,  by  a  great  and  beneficent  law  of  Arab  hospitality, 
he  is  safe.  "That  the  guest  is  inviolable  is  one  of  the  first  principles 
of  Arab  hospitality.  To  be  safe,  the  stranger  needs  but  enter  the 
tent,  or  only  touch  a  tent  rope;  then,  even  if  he  be  an  enemy,  no 
hand  will  be  raised  against  him.  To  fall  upon  one  seeking  shelter 
in  his  tent  would  stain  an  Arab's  name  with  everlasting  dishonor." 
The  enemies,  then,  are  powerless  to  lay  a  finger  upon  the  Psalmist. 
They  may  stand  at  the  tent-door  and  glare  in  upon  him;  but  within 
the  tent,  his  protection  is  guaranteed  by  his  divine  Host. 

3.  And  not  only  bare  protection,  but  abundant  hospitality.  His 
head  is  anointed  with  oil,  as  was  the  custom  in  the  East  before  a 
banquet — how  unlike  the  reception  accorded  to  Jesus  by  the  haughty 
Pharisee!  (Luke  7:  46).  He  is  guest  at  the  table  spread;  he  drinks 
of  a  full  and  exhilarating  cup. 

4.  So  real  and  overwhelming  is  his  sense  of  the  divine  hospitality 
that  he  feels  sure  he  shall  enjoy  it  as  long  as  he  lives.  The  language 
in  which  he  expresses  this  confidence  is  enthusiastic  to  the  point  of 
daring.  "Surely  goodness  and  kindness  shall — not  merely  follow  me, 
but — pursue  me  all  the  days  of  my  life."  The  word  is  that  used 
for  the  pursuit  of  the  enemy  in  battle;  and  goodness  and  mercy, 
like  two  angel  spirits,  are  chasing  him,  as  it  were — in  hot  haste  after 
him,  divinely  determined  to  capture  him. 

5.  How  sure  he  must  have  been  of  the  divine  love !  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  he  wished  to  enjoy  forever  the  shelter  and  hospitality  of  that 
gracious  tent,  or  that  he  vowed,  "T  shall  dwell  in  the  house  of 
Jehovah  throughout  the  length  of  days"? 


26  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  d)e  J^tefisagc  of  tl)e  JJfialm  for  5Efi 

1.  There  is  no  psalm  on  which  it  is  so  supremely  difficult  to  com- 
ment as  this.  Its  tender  beauty  eludes  analysis,  and  its  teaching 
was  never  meant  for  systematization.  The  attempt  to  assign  a 
definite  meaning  to  the  "green  pastures,"  the  "waters  of  rest,"  or 
the  "gloomy  valley,"  would  be  both  prosaic  and  futile.  Here  more 
than  anywhere  else  must  the  reader  interpret  for  himself  out  of  his 
own  experience.  The  glory  of  the  psalm  lies  in  its  power  to  sug- 
gest to  each  reader  an  application  which  suits  his  own  experience. 

2.  It  is  full  of  the  sense  that  life  is  haunted  by  a  presence.  We 
may  be  travelling  through  the  great  and  terrible  wilderness ;  but  its 
terrors  vanish  for  him  who  can  say,  ''Thou  art  with  me."  We  are 
indeed  silly  sheep,  but  not  shepherdless.  Here  and  there  as  we  look 
across  our  life  we  see  green  and  happy  spots  where  we  were  re- 
freshed, renewed,  restored.  In  our  best  moments  we  know  that  it 
was  the  good  Shepherd  who  took  us  there,  and  we  might  have  been 
there  far  oftener  had  we  given  up  our  lives  to  his  leading  and  guid- 
ing ;  for  the  paths  on  which  he  leads  us  are  not  crooked  but  straight. 
And  if  we  are  willing  to  follow,  he  is  pledged  to  guide  us,  for  his 
own  name's  sake.     He  must  be  true  to  his  sheep  as  to  himself. 

3.  Very  remarkable  is  the  thought  in  verse  6  of  God's  pursuit  of 
men.  The  Psalmist  could  have  used  no  stronger  word  to  express 
the  earnestness  of  God's  affection  for  us.  "He  pursues  us  with  the 
zeal  of  a  foe,  and  the  love  of  a  Father;  pursues  us  'throughout  the 
length  of  days'  with  a  divine  impatience  that  is  never  faint  and 
never  weary.  He  is  not  content  to  follow  us :  he  pursues  us,  because 
he  means  to  find  us.  Behind  the  loneliest  man  is  a  lovely  appari- 
tion ;  nay,  no  apparition,  but  angels  twain,  'Goodness  and  Mercy.' 
Had  the  powers  that  pursued  us  not  been  goodness  and  mercy  they 
would  have  slain  us  long  ago  as  cum_berers  of  the  ground. "^ 

4.  This  psalm  is  not  a  prayer,  but  a  confession  of  faith.  The  writer 
does  not  pray  to  be  led  to  the  green  pastures  and  the  restful  waters  ; 
he  is  there  already.  He  does  not  pray  for  the  divine  protection,  as  he 
passes  through  the  gloomy  valleys;  he  enjoys  it  already.  He  does 
not  pray  that  he  may  be  fed  by  the  divine  bounty;  already  the  table 
is  spread  and  his  cup  is  running  over.  He  has  an  unbroken  sense 
of  the  divine  goodness  that  filled  the  past,  and  will  assuredly  fill  the 
future.  He  has  heard  the  voice  of  his  heavenly  Father — though  per- 
haps he  has  not  yet  learned  to  call  him  Father — saying  : 

*'Child,  thou  art  ever  with  me. 
And  all  that  is  mine  is  thine." — (Luke  15:31). 

iSee  my  Divine  Pursuit  (Revell,  1901),  pp.  197,  198. 


THE    TWENTY-THIRD   PSALM  27 

Fifth  Day  :  J3arapl)rafi!e  of  tlje  pgalin 

Like  a  good  shepherd,  my  God  is  always  caring  for  me,  so  that  I 
lack  for  nothing.  He  guides  me  to  sources  of  renewal  and  rest, 
making  me  lie  down  in  pastures  green,  and  leading  me  to  waters  of 
quietness.  My  weary  spirit  he  refreshes;  he  guides  me  in  paths 
that  are  straight,  for  the  glory  of  his  name.  Yea,  and  he  can  guide 
me  in  the  darkness  as  in  the  light.  For,  even  when  I  walk  in  the 
valley  of  the  deep  shadow,  I  fear  no  ill;  for  thou  art  with  me,  to 
guide  and  defend  me.    Thy  rod  and  thy  staff  are  my  comfort. 

Thou  art,  too,  my  host,  as  well  as  my  shepherd,  and  at  thy  hos- 
pitable table  I  feast  without  fear,  though  mine  enemies  glare  in 
upon  me.  Thou  anointest  my  head  for  the  banquet,  and  the  gifts 
of  thy  table  are  abundant.  Surely  goodness  and  mercy,  angels 
twain,  shall  follow  close  after  me  all  my  days,  and  I  shall  dwell 
forever  in  the  house  of  my  God. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly  mod- 
ern and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


28  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  JJointfii  for  Con£iitierati0n 

1.  Does  this  psalm  seem  to  you  the  work  of  youth  or  of  a  matured 
and  checkered  experience? 

2.  (a)  "Psalm  23  expresses  calm  confidence  in  Jehovah:  (i)  as 
shepherd,  providing  his  sheep  with  plentiful  pasture  and  water 
(verses  1-3)  ;  (2)  as  guide,  conducting  his  companion  safely  in 
right  paths  through  a  gloomy  ravine  (verses  3,  4)  ;  (3)  as  host, 
anointing  his  guest  for  the  banquet  and  granting  him  perpetual  hos- 
pitality. *  *  *  (verses  5,  6).  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  theme  of  the  shepherd  extends  into  the  second  strophe.  *  *  * 
In  strophe  iii  the  host  takes  the  place  of  the  shepherd  and  the  guide 
of  the  previous  strophes." — C.  A.  Briggs. 

(b)  "The  twenty-third  psalm  seems  to  break  in  two  at  the  end 
of  the  fourth  verse.  The  first  four  verses  clearly  reflect  a  pastoral 
scene ;  the  fifth  appears  to  carry  us  off,  without  warning,  to  very  dif- 
ferent associations.  This,  however,  is  only  in  appearance.  The  last 
two  verses  are  as  pastoral  as  the  first  four.  If  these  show  us  the 
shepherd  with  his  sheep  upon  the  pasture,  those  follow  him,  shepherd 
still,  to  where  in  his  tent  he  dispenses  the  desert's  hospitality  to  some 
poor  fugitive  from  blood." — George  Adam  Smith. 

(c)  "It  is  all,  all  a  simple  shepherd  psalm.  See  how  it  runs 
through  the  round  of  shepherd  life  from  first  word  to  last.  *  *  * 
The  psalm  closes  with  the  last  scene  of  the  day.  At  the  door  of  the 
sheepfold  the  shepherd  stands.  With  his  rod  he  holds  back  the 
sheep  while  he  inspects  them  one  by  one  as  they  pass  into  the  fold. 
He  has  the  horn  filled  with  olive  oil,  and  he  has  cedar-tar,  and  he 
anoints  a  knee  bruised  on  the  rocks,  or  a  side  scratched  by  thorns. 
And  here  comes  one  that  is  not  bruised,  but  is  simply  worn  and 
exhausted ;  he  bathes  its  face  and  head  with  the  refreshing  olive  oil, 
and  he  takes  the  large  two-handled  cup  and  dips  it  brimming  full 
from  the  vessel  of  v/ater  provided  for  that  purpose,  and  he  lets  the 
weary  sheep  drink.  There  is  nothing  finer  in  the  psalm  than  this. 
God's  care  is  not  for  the  wounded  only,  but  for  the  worn  and  weary 
also.  'He  anointeth  my  head  with  oil,  my  cup  runneth  over.'  " — 
The  Song  of  Our  Syrian  Guest. 

Consider  carefully  the  above  interpretations  of  the  psalm.  Which 
do  you  prefer,  and  why? 

3.  "On  either  side  of  the  river  was  also  a  meadow,  curiously  beau- 
tified with  lilies,  and  it  was  green  all  the  year  long.  In  this  meadow 
they  lay  down  and  slept;  for  here  they  might  lie  down  safely." — 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress. 


THE    TWENTY-THIRD   PSALM  29 

4.  Compare  the  following  versions  of  Psalm  23 :  6  with  each  other 
and  with  the  original: 

Goodness  and  mercy  all  my  life 

Shall  surely  follow  me; 
And  in  God's  house  for  evermore 

My  dwelling-place  shall  be. 

— Scotch  Metrical  Version, 

O  nought  but  love  and  mercy  wait 

Through  all  my  life  on  me, 
And  I  within  my  Father's  gate 

For  long  bright  years  shall  be.  — Kehle. 

And  so  through  all  the  length  of  days 

Thy  goodness  faileth  never : 
Good  Shepherd,  may  I  sing  thy  praise 

Within  thy  house  forever.  — Baker. 


30  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Seventh  Day  :  Cliotiff^tfii  anU  (BntdtioM 

1.  How  do  you  account  for  the  extraordinary  power  and  popu- 
larity of  this  psalm? 

2.  Has  the  psalm  ever  spoken  to  you  with  special  power?  Recall 
such  occasions. 

3.  Like  the  Lord's  prayer,  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  is  appropriate 
to  every  stage  of  religious  development.  A  child  can  understand 
it,  but  the  wisest  cannot  exhaust  its  depths.  As  we  grow,  it  grows ; 
we  never  leave  it  behind. 

4.  "I  am  the  good  shepherd"  (John  10:11).  How  rich  and 
definite  a  meaning  flows  into  the  ancient  words  of  the  psalm,  when 
we  think  of  Jesus  as  our  Shepherd!  Carefully  re-read  the  psalm 
with  this  thought  in  view. 

5.  "In  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  I  will  fear  no  evil."  Note 
that  the  correct  translation,  "the  valley  of  deep  gloom,  the  valley  of 
the  deep  shadow,"  is  really  more  comprehensive  than  the  other  and 
more  familiar  phrase.  The  Psalmist  is  expressing  his  faith  in  the 
presence  of  the  divine  Companion,  not  only  in  the  valley  of  death, 
but  in  every  valley  through  which  he  may  have  to  pass,  before  he 
reaches  the  last  and  darkest  of  all. 

6.  "I  will  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  forever."  The  Hebrew 
words  mean  literally  "for  length  of  days" ;  and  the  first  clause  of  the 
verse  shows  that  the  Psalmist  is  thinking  of  the  days  of  his  own 
lifetime.  Yet  the  thought  "forever"  is  a  natural  and  legitimate  ex- 
pansion of  the  general  thought  of  the  psalm.  Men  who  had  learned 
to  know  God  in  this  life  as  their  Shepherd,  Host,  and  Friend,  came 
little  by  little  to  feel  sure  that  not  even  death  could  separate  them 
from  his  love.    He  was  eternal,  and  they  were  in  him. 


STUDY  IV 


THE  THIRTY-NINTH  PSALM  2>2> 

First  Day  :   C^e  Ccpt  of  t\^t  p^alm 

I  said,  "I  will  watch  my  ways, 

To  keep  from  sinning  with  my  tongue. 
I  will  put  a  bridle  on  my  mouth, 

So  long  as  the  wicked  are  before  me." 
I   was   dumb   and   silent, 

I  utterly  held  my  peace ; 

But  my  pain  was  stirred  up. 
My  heart  became  hot  in  my  bosom, 

As  I  mused,  the  fire  kindled. 

And  at  last  I  spake  with  my  tongue. 

Teach  me,  Jehovah,  mine  end. 

And  the  measure  of  my  days — what  it  is ; 

Let  me  know  how  frail  I  am. 
See !  Thou  hast  made  my  days  but  a  span. 

And  my  life  is  as  nothing  before  thee. 
Refrain — Ah !  surely  as  a  breath  doth  every  man  stand. 

Ah !  surely  in  mere  semblance  man  walketh  about. 
Surely  his  noise  is  all  for  nothing. 
He  heaps  up,  and  knows  not  who  shall  gather. 

And  now  what  wait  I  for,  O  Lord? 

My  hope  is  in  thee. 
From  all  my  transgressions  deliver  me, 

Make  me  not  the  scorn  of  the  fool. 
I  am  dumb,  I  open  not  my  mouth ; 

For  it  is  thou  that  hast  done  it. 
Oh!  take  thy  stroke  away  from  me, 

By  the  might  of  thy  hand  I  am  clean  spent.    Ah  me ! 
When  with  rebukes  for  sin  thou  dost  chasten  a  man, 

Thou  wastest,  like  a  moth,  his  beauty. 
Refrain — Ah !  surely  every  man  is  but  a  breath. 

Oh!  hear  my  prayer,  Jehovah,   and  hearken  to  my  cry  for  help, 

Hold  not  thy  peace  at  my  tears ; 
For  a  guest  am  I  with  thee. 

And  a  sojourner,  like  all  my  fathers. 
Look  away  from  me,  that  I  may  smile  again, 

Ere  I  go  away,  and  be  no  more. 

Meditate  upon  the  psalm  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books, 
until  you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


34  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day  :  ^\iz  |3at]^a6  of  life  (^erfiefli  l'-6) 

1.  Ewald  has  called  this  psalm  "incontestably  the  finest  of  all  the 
elegies  in  the  Psalter."  Brief  as  it  is,  it  reflects  a  variety  of  moods 
— patience  and  anger,  regret  and  resignation,  murmuring  and  faith. 
The  Psalmist  has  the  skill  to  give  us,  in  a  word  or  two,  a  glimpse 
into  the  depths  of  his  hot  and  troubled  heart. 

2.  His  lot  has  been  an  unhappy  one.  Like  many  a  saint  whose 
voice  is  heard  in  the  Old  Testament,  he  had  had  to  suffer  sorely,  so 
sorely  that  he  had  been  tempted  to  murmur  and  to  challenge,  like 
Jeremiah  (12:  i),  the  divine  government  of  the  world.  But  he  had 
determined  to  keep  silence,  and  he  had  kept  silence.  It  had  been 
hard,  but  it  was  his  duty.  Had  he  broken  out  in  impatient  murmurs 
at  the  ways  of  his  God,  the  godless,  who  were  maliciously  watching 
how  he  would  behave,  would  have  been  delighted ;  so,  for  the  honor 
of  his  God,  he  held  his  peace,  and  put  a  bridle  upon  his  lips. 

3.  But  this  effort  at  repression  only  stirred  up  his  pain  all  the 
more.  The  heart  which  seemed  so  quiet,  was  seething  beneath  the 
surface.  The  more  he  thought  of  it  all,  the  more  impatient  and 
indignant  he  grew,  till  at  last  the  flame  which  he  could  no  longer 
control  leaped  out,  and  his  hot  heart  expressed  itself  in  words  of 
fire. 

4.  But  what  those  words  were,  he  has  not  chosen  to  tell  us;  for 
the  tender  prayer  that  follows  betrays  nothing  of  the  storm  and 
passion  that  had  been  raging  in  his  heart.  Between  verses  3  and  4 
we  may  imagine  a  pause  in  which  the  Psalmist  had  reached  a  better 
mind.  He  bethinks  him  who  this  great  God  is,  before  whom  he 
stands,  and  whose  ways  he  is  tempted  to  challenge;  and  as  he 
thinks  of  God's  great  eternity,  and  of  the  infinite  littleness  and 
frailty  of  his  own  life,  the  hot  words  die  upon  his  tongue,  and  in 
their  stead  he  offers  a  gentle  prayer. 

5.  He  is  overwhelmed  by  a  sense  of  the  infinite  pathos  of  life— 
his  own  life,  all  human  life.  It  is  so  very  frail  and  short — only  a 
hand-breadth  or  two.  It  is  but  a  breath,  a  vapor,  which  at  any 
moment  may  vanish.  It  has  no  substance,  it  is  only  a  semblance 
and  a  shadow.  It  is  full  of  noise,  but  the  noise  is  all  about  nothing : 
it  dies  away  upon  God's  great  eternity.  And  especially  empty  is  that 
noisiest  struggle  of  all — the  struggle  for  riches;  when  the  pile  is 
high,  the  man  who  has  gathered  it  is  called  to  his  long  rest.  He 
has  to  leave  it  all,  and  does  not  even  know  whose  it  will  be  after 
him.  Brief  life,  empty  noise,  fruitless  effort — verily  every  man  is 
but  a  vapor.  Therefore  he  tenderly  prays,  "Make  me  to  know  mine 
end,  O  my  God,  and  the  measure  of  my  days,  what  it  is;  and  let 
me  know  how  frail  I  am." 


THE  THIRTY-NINTH  PSALM  3t 

Third  Day:  Cjbe  Pfialmifit'd  JJraper  for  JJitp  (Sereefi  7-43) 

1.  The  thing  we  call  life  is  but  a  phantom,  an  idle  pageant  full  of 
empty  noise;  and  yet  surely  it  must  be  more.  The  deep-hearted 
Psalmist  can  never  be  content  with  that;  and  he  feels,  through  his 
sorrow,  that  that  better  thing  for  which  he  is  looking,  and  in  which, 
at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  he  believes,  is  only  to  be  found  in  God. 
My  hope  is  in  thee. 

2.  He  is  now  in  a  quieter  mood,  and  he  is  able  to  see  something 
of  the  meaning  of  his  suffering.  After  all,  it  is  not  undeserved;  it 
is  divine  chastisement  for  sin.  So  he  prays  God  to  deliver  him  from 
the  sin,  and  so  from  the  penalty  which  it  brings.  In  this  chastened 
mood  he  has  no  fear  now  of  "sinning  with  his  lips";  he  recognizes 
the  hand  of  God  behind  his  calamity— 'T/zom  hast  done  it."  Never- 
theless, he  prays  that  that  heavy  hand  be  lifted.  Life  is  so  weak 
and  frail  that,  if  the  omnipotent  God  thus  assails  it  even  in  chastise- 
ment for  sin,  it  and  all  its  loveliness  must  perish  outright— destroyed 
as  utterly  as  the  garment  that  is  eaten  by  moths,  or  the  meaning 
may  be,  as  utterly  and  as  easily  obliterated  as  the  moth  itself  is 
crushed.  And  again  is  heard  the  pathetic  refrain:  "Verily  every 
m.an  is  but  a  vapor." 

3.  The  Psalmist  hopes  in  God:  yet  his  soul  is  still  shaken  with 
the  pity  and  the  terror  of  life's  facts.  And  he  prays  for  help  once 
again— this  time,  like  Christ,  with  strong  crying  and  tears  (Hebrews 
5:7).  He  appeals  pathetically  to  the  great  Lord  to  have  pity,  on 
the  ground  that  he  is  only  a  passing  guest  in  this  world,  and  there- 
fore may  justly  claim  the  friendly  consideration  of  his  host;  that 
he  is,  as  it  were,  a  stranger  residing  in  a  foreign  land,  and  may 
therefore  claim  the  protection  of  the  lord  of  that  land  (cf.  Leviticus 
25:23).  He  is  going  away  to  the  land  of  darkness  (cf.  Job  10:21, 
22),  and  if  his  God  means  to  show  his  kindness  upon  him  at  all.  he 
must  do  so  now,  while  he  is  in  the  land  of  the  living.  Therefore  he 
prays  that  the  angry  face  of  God  may  be  turned  away  from  him  for 
a  brief  space,  that  he  may  smile  again — a  beautiful  word  which  sug- 
gests the  sun  breaking  through  the  clouds — ere  he  enters  the  ever- 
lasting night. 


36  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  CI)c  iHtficaffe  of  X^t  |)fialm  for  ^& 

1.  Can  such  a  psalm  have  any  message  for  us  at  all?  It  is  a 
poem  of  singular  beauty,  a  very  touching  lament  out  of  the  long  ago, 
a  cry  from  a  life  that  had  been 

''Heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  dipped  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  battered  with  the  shocks  of  doom." 

But  is  it  a  cry  for  Christian  lips?  Is  its  sorrow,  its  dumb  and 
almost  hopeless  resignation,  its  pathetic  appeal  for  a  gleam  of  light 
and  pity,  ere  its  writer  is  swallowed  up  in  the  everlasting  darkness 
— is  all  this  not  done  away  for  those  who  believe  in  the  gospel? 

2.  That  may  be.  Yet  he  is  no  great-hearted  man,  nor  has  he  seen 
far  or  deep  into  life,  who  has  not  sometimes  been  touched  by  the 
"sense  of  tears  in  mortal  things" ;  and  that  sense  has  seldom  found 
more  noble  or  affecting  expression  than  in  the  exquisite  elegy  which 
we  know  as  the  Thirty-ninth  Psalm.  The  Psalmist  was  overwhelmed 
with  his  sense  of  the  pathos  of  human  life.  "Surely  every  man  is 
but  a  breath"  is  the  burden  of  his  refrain ;  and  though  he  finds  his 
hope  and  antidote  in  God,  this  does  not  lift  him  completely  over 
his  sense  of  life's  infinite  and  unutterable  sadness.  It  is  brief  as  a 
span.  It  is  crushed  like  the  moth.  It  is  full  of  sound  that  signifies 
nothing.  And  while  this  is  not  a  mood  to  be  cherished,  neither  is 
it  a  mood  to  be  always  and  instantly  repelled.  It  is  good  to  remind 
ourselves  that  most  of  our  noise  is  for  nothing,  and  that  at  the  end 
3'awns  the  grave. 

3.  But  if  sorrow  is  a  fact,  God  is  also  a  fact.  My  life  is  but  a 
vapor,  but  my  hope  is  in  thee.  According  to  some,  this  suggests 
that  the  Psalmist  expected  God  to  interpose  and  vindicate  him  in 
this  world,  especially  as  his  outlook  upon  the  world  beyond  is  so 
gloomy  (verse  13).  But  in  spite  of  that  outlook,  it  would  still  seem 
that  the  Psalmist  yearns  for,  and  hopes  in,  and  even  dimly  believes 
in,  immortality.  Life  is  so  sad  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  hoped  for 
here — "what  wait  I  for?"  His  hope  must  therefore  be  in  God,  who 
is  not  bound  by  the  frailty  and  the  limitations  of  this  earthly  life. 
We  may  say,  if  we  please,  that  he  is  pushed,  by  his  sorrow,  into  his 
faith  in  a  God  of  the  Beyond ;  but  at  any  rate,  he  is  pushed  upon  a 
certainty.  And  the  hope  with  which  he  comforted  his  broken  heart, 
and  the  faith  which  steadied  him  when  crushed  by  a  sense  of  the 
vanity  and  transience  of  life,  may  be  ours.  Beyond  the  shadows  of 
this  world  is  the  substance  of  that  other  world.  Beyond  the  vapor 
which  appeareth  for  a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away,  is  the 
infinite  and  eternal  God. 


THE   THIRTY-NINTH  PSALM  37 

Fifth  Day  :  JJarapbtafie  of  tlje  |3fl!alm 

I  resolved  to  watch  my  words,  and  carefully  to  abstain  from  mur- 
muring against  my  unhappy  lot ;  for  there  were  godless  ones  about 
nie,  who  would  have  mockingly  rejoiced,  had  they  heard  me  com- 
plain of  the  ways  of  my  God,  So  I  remained  altogether  silent,  and 
uttered  not  a  word,  though  my  pain  was  stirred  up  within  me; 
my  heart  was  hot,  and  burning  thoughts  tormented  me. 

Then  I  prayed  that  thou  wouldst  teach  me  how  near  my  end  was, 
and  how  brief  my  life.  Yea,  is  it  not  very  brief?— but  a  span,  and 
as  nothing  in  thy  sight,  and  man  is  but  a  breath.  He  moves  about 
as  a  shadow;  his  life  is  full  of  empty  noise;  he  heaps  up  and  knows 
not  who  shall  gather. 

What,  then,  has  life  to  yield?  My  heart  yearns  for  the  substance 
beyond  the  shadow.  O  my  God,  my  hope  is  in  thee.  Save  me  from 
sin  and  the  chastisement  it  brings,  lest  I  become  the  scorn  of  the 
fool.  I  am  altogether  silent;  for  it  is  thy  hand  that  has  wrought 
this  thing.  But  oh !  remove  that  heavy  hand  of  thine  from  me,  for 
I  am  crushed  to  earth.  With  stern  discipline  thou  dost  chastise  man 
for  his  sin,  withering  his  beauty  like  the  moth ;  man  is  but  a  breath. 

O  listen,  when  I  beseech  thee  with  loud  crying  and  tears ;  for 
thou  art  my  Lord  and  protector  in  the  strange  land  of  my  sojourn- 
ing. Look  away  from  me,  that  I  may  smile  again,  before  I  go  away 
and  be  no  more. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


38  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  J)ottttg  for  ConsiHetation 

In  the  light  of  the  psalm,  consider  the  following  quotations : 

1.  I  said  to  myself— Is  this  life?  But  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
never  would  I  give  myself  tongue.  I  clapped  a  muzzle  on  my  mouth. 
Had  I  followed  my  own  natural  bent,  I  should  have  become  ex- 
pressive about  what  I  had  to  endure,  but  I  found  that  expression 
reacts  on  him  who  expresses  and  intensifies  what  is  expressed. — 
{Mark  Rutherford.) 

(The  rule  of  silence  for  the  Benedictine  order  was  based  on  the 
first  verse  of  this  psalm.) 

2.  We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

— {Shakespeare,  The  Tempest.) 

■3«  That  blessed  mood, 

In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world, 
Is  lightened.  — {Wordsworth,  Tintern  Abbey.) 

4.   (fl)  To  die  is  gain.     (Philippians  1:21.) 

{b)  To  depart  and  be  with  Christ  is  very  far  better.  (Philip- 
pians 1 :  23.) 

{c)  Christ  Jesus  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light.  (2  Tim- 
othy I  :io.) 

{d)  Ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  sojourners,  but  ye  are 
fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of 
God.     (Ephesians  2:19.) 


THE  THIRTY-NINTH  PSALM  39 

Seventh  Day  :  ^uefittonfi  for  {)tactical  life 

1.  Recall  the  moments  in  which  you  were  overwhelmed  by  a  sense 
of  the  littleness  and  transience  of  life.  By  what  thoughts,  if  any, 
were  you  steadied  and  comforted? 

2.  Are  there  any  words  of  Jesus  on  the  pathos  of  life?  (cf. 
John  9:4,  "The  night  is  coming.") 

3.  How  far  may  a  Christian  appropriate  the  words  of  this  psalm? 
(cf.  James  4:14,  "What  is  your  life?  For  ye  are  a  vapor  that 
appeareth  for  a  little  time,  and  then  vanisheth  away.") 

4.  Do  you  believe  in  immortality?  If  so,  on  what  do  you  ground 
your  belief?  What  would  be  the  practical  effect,  upon  your  con- 
duct or  your  attitude  to  life,  of  the  disappearance  of  this  belief? 

5.  What  Bible  teaching  on  the  subject  of  the  future  life  occurs  tp 
your  mind? 

6.  Can  you  say,  "My  hope  is  in  thee"?    If  not,  why  not?, 


STUDY  V 
dL^t  lavtvtisM  psalm 


THE  FORTY-EIGHTH  PSALM  43 

First  Day  :  C()c  ^tjii  of  tl)c  Pfialm 

Great  is  Jehovah,  and  worthy  of  exceeding  praise, 

In  the  city  of  our  God,  his  holy  mountain. 
Beautiful  in  elevation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth, 

Is  Mount  Zion  on  her  northern  side,  the  city  of  the  great  King. 
God  in  her  citadels 

Has  made  himself  known  as  a  high  tower. 

For,  see !  the  kings  had  gathered  by  appointment. 

They  crossed  the  frontier  together. 
But  as  for  them,  when  they  saw,  they  were  straightway  amazed; 

Confounded,  in  hot  haste  they  fled. 
Shuddering  seized  them  there — 

Writhing,  as  a  woman  in  travail ; 
(Shattered  they  were,  as)  by  an  east  wind 

Thou  breakcst  in  pieces  the  ships  of  Tarshish. 
As  we  have  heard,  so  we  have  seen, 

In  the  city  of  Jehovah  of  hosts,  in  the  city  of  our  God; 

God  shall  establish  her  forever. 

We  have  thought,  O  God,  of  thy  kindness, 

In  the  midst  of  thy  temple. 
As  is  thy  name,  O  God, 

So  is  thy  praise  to  the  ends  of  the  earth ; 

Of  righteousness  thy  right  hand  is  full ; 
Let  Mount  Zion  be  glad. 

Let  the  daughters  of  Judah  rejoice, 

Because  of  thine  acts  of  judgment. 

Go  about  Zion,  and  circle  her  round. 

Count  her  towers ; 
Set  your  mind  upon  her  ramparts. 

Consider  her  citadels. 

That  ye  may  tell  to  the  generation  following. 
That  such  is  Jehovah  our  God. 

He  it  is  that  shall  guide  us  for  ever  and  aye. 

Meditate  upon  the  psalm  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books, 
until  you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


44  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day:  Cl)e  (titi^  of  t|)e  (0reat  "^ixi^  (Sergea  1-8) 

1.  It  is  somewhat  pathetic  that  we  know  nothing  whatever  of  the 
origin  of  this  joyous  and  beautiful  psalm.  It  is  generally  believed 
that,  in  common  with  Psalm  46,  it  was  written  to  celebrate  the  de- 
liverance of  Judah  from  Sennacherib  and  his  Assyrians  in  701  B.  C, 
described  in  2  Kings  18,  19 ;  Isaiah  36,  2>7-  Others,  however,  regard 
it  as  a  pilgrim  psalm,  sung  by  Jews  who  had  traveled  from  distant 
lands  to  Jerusalem,  and  who  looked  with  eyes  of  reverent  wonder 
and  delight  at  the  famous  old  city,  where  so  much  epoch-making 
history  had  been  enacted.  In  either  case,  the  affection  of  the  singer 
goes  out  to  the  city,  and  to  the  temple  hill,  and  most  of  all  to  the 
great  unseen  King  who  had  defended  the  city,  and  who  was  wor- 
shipped in  the  temple. 

2.  He  was  great  and  worthy  of  all  praise  from  his  grateful  wor- 
shippers in  the  temple  on  the  lovely  Zion  hill.  No  Greek  could  have 
spoken  of  Athens  with  a  more  passionate  enthusiasm  than  this 
Psalmist  speaks  of  Zion.  And  it  was  not  only  her  beauty  that 
thrilled  him,  but  still  more  the  great  deeds  that  had  been  done  in 
her;  for  there  God  had  often,  but  especially  on  one  conspicuous 
occasion,  made  himself  known  as  the  champion  and  defender  of  his 
people. 

3.  For,  see!  the  Psalmist's  blood  warms  as  he  thinks  of  it.  The 
great  Assyrian  army,  whose  divisions  were  commanded  by  vassal 
kings,  gathered  for  an  assault  upon  the  little  land  of  Judah,  and 
especially  upon  her  royal  capital  city.  On  they  came ;  but — and  here 
the  Psalmist's  brief  words  are  vivid,  and  almost  breathless — when 
they  saw,  that  is,  when  they  saw  this  wonderful  city,  and  the 
mysterious  power  of  the  God  whom  its  people  worshipped,  they 
were  amazed,  confounded,  and  off  they  hurried  away  (cf.  2  Kings 
19:  35,  36) — trembling,  for  all  their  warlike  might,  like  a  woman  in 
labor,  shattered  as  terribly  as  the  wind  shivers  the  giant  ships  in 
pieces.  This  is  a  very  splendid  description,  done,  with  inimitable 
art,  in  a  word  or  two ;  its  effect  is  to  show  how  powerless  the 
"kings"  were,  when  they  clashed  in  conflict  with  the  Great  King. 

4.  The  Psalmist  and  his  countrymen  had  often  heard  of  such 
stories ;  they  had  been  told  how  the  powerful  Pharaoh  had  been 
crushed  by  Jehovah,  how  the  horse  and  his  Egyptian  rider  had  been 
thrown  into  the  sea.  But  now  with  their  own  eyes  and  in  their 
own  city  they  had  seen  a  thing  as  great  as  any  that  had  happened 
in  the  olden  days.  "As  we  have  heard,  so  have  we  seen."  And  with 
those  ancient  tales  in  their  ears,  corroborated  by  the  sights  they 
have  seen  with  their  own  eyes,  they  can  look  forward  to  the  future 
of  the  city  with  calm  confidence :   "God  will  establish  her  forever." 


THE  FORTY-EIGHTH  PSALM  45 

Third  Day:  C[)e  9lppeal  to  (£j:penencc  (©ewefl!  9-14) 

1.  The  eager,  graphic  description  of  the  Assyrian  defeat  is  fol- 
lowed by  two  verses  in  a  more  subdued  strain,  as  the  singers  quietly 
contemplate  the  kindness  of  their  God.  "We  have  thought  on, 
turned  over  in  our  minds,  pondered  on,  thy  loving  kindness,  O  God, 
in  the  midst  of  thy  temple."  That  loving  kindness  on  which  they 
ponder  is  not  an  abstract  thing,  nor  a  mere  attribute  of  their  God; 
it  has  been  vitally  illustrated  by  the  deliverance  which  the  singer 
described  in  the  first  part  of  the  psalm.  That  was  his  loving  kind- 
ness, and  for  that  definite  thing  they  meet  in  the  temple  to  praise 
him.  And  his  praise  is  sung,  not  only  in  the  temple,  but  all  the 
world  over;  for  this  victory  which  his  right  hand  wrought  for  his 
people,  will  reach  and  gladden  the  ears  of  all  men  everywhere,  and 
they  will  be  won  to  the  worship  of  the  great  God  of  Israel. 

2.  But  most  of  all  it  is  the  delivered  people  themselves  that  rejoice 
— of  Judah,  which  was  ravaged,  and  Jerusalem,  which  was  threat- 
ened. Therefore  "let  Mount  Zion  be  glad,  let  the  daughters — that 
is,  the  little  village- towns — of  Judah,  rejoice"  because  of  this  mar- 
vellous interposition  of  their  God.  And  this  is  an  interposition 
which  it  is  impossible  to  deny ;  a  walk  about  Jerusalem  will  convince 
the  most  obstinate  unbeliever.  Count  her  towers— not  one  of  them 
is  missing.  Mark  well  her  bulwarks — not  one  of  them  has  been 
injured  by  the  enemy  (cf.  2  Kings  19:  32).  Consider  her  citadels — 
iiot  one  of  them  has  been  touched.  Is  it  not  wonderful  how  our  God 
has  preserved  his  city  from  the  menace  of  the  Assyrians,  when  they 
were  about  to  come  down  like  wolves  on  the  fold?  and  not  only 
wonderful,  but  indubitable — the  proofs  of  his  power  are  everywhere 
in  the  city  so  strangely,  but  completely,  preserved  from  destruction. 

3.  Now  those  who  have  been  privileged  to  witness  so  wonderful 
a  manifestation  of  God's  grace  are  bound  to  see  that  the  story  is  not 
forgotten.  It  must  be  told  to  the  children  and  handed  on  by  them 
to  the  generations  yet  to  come.  So  the  Psalmist  concludes  by  bid- 
ding his  people  mark  and  consider  it  all  well,  that  they  may  tell  to 
the  next  generation  what  a  glorious  God  is  Israel's  God.  As  they 
look  at  their  stately  city,  beautiful  in  elevation,  the  joy  of  the  whole 
earth,  and  think  how  miraculously  she  was  preserved  from  destruc- 
tion, they  will  say  with  grateful  pride,  "Such  is  Jehovah,  our  God; 
HE  (very  emphatic)  will  be  our  guide  for  ever  and  ever." 

4.  The  words  rendered  "even  unto  death"  (al-muth)  recall  the 
musical  directions  at  the  beginning  of  Psalms  9  (al  muth-labben) 
and  46  (al-alamoth),  and  probably  in  reality  do  not  belong  to 
Psalm  48,  but  are  part  of  the  musical  superscription  to  the  following 
psalm  (49).    The  Psalmist  is  not  thinking  of  the  guidance  of  the 


46  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

individual  unto  death,  but  of  the  guidance  of  the  national  life  for- 
ever. But  though  we  may  lose  the  words  which,  by  association,  are 
so  dear  to  many,  we  do  not  lose  the  essential  thought  which  they 
express;  "for  he  will  guide  us  for  ever  and  ever'' 


THE  FORTY-EIGHTH  PSALM  A7 

Fourth  Day  :  W^t  f&,t&m^t  of  t|)e  |)fiialm  for  ^B 

1.  Few  psalms  so  brief  are  so  rich  in  great  suggestions.  The  first 
of  these  is  this,  that  one  of  the  great  ways  in  which  God  reveals 
himself  is  upon  the  field  of  history.  We  are  apt  to  think  of  revela- 
tion too  abstractly,  or  to  associate  it  too  exclusively  with  the  Bible; 
here  we  learn  that  "God  has  made  himself  known  in  her  citadels" — 
in  the  citadels  of  Jerusalem — by  defending  them  (cf.  verses  3  and 
13).  If  the  enemy  alluded  to  in  this  psalm  is  Sennacherib  and  his 
Assyrians,  there  was  certainly  something  remarkable,  not  to  say 
miraculous,  in  his  speedy  departure  (2  Kings  19:35).  The  inhabi- 
tants had  conclusive  proof  of  God's  presence  within  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  which  the  unseen  King  had  defended  against  the  bluster- 
ing kings  who  opposed  him ;  and  it  is  this  that  gives  vividness  and 
color  to  the  more  abstract  words  of  the  psalm,  whose  concrete,  his- 
torical basis  we  too  seldom  realize.  This  was  the  ''loving  kindness" 
which  the  worshippers  thought  on,  as  they  gathered  in  the  temple 
(verse  9)  ;  this  was  one  of  the  divine  "judgments"  at  which  Zion 
and  the  daughters  of  Judah  rejoiced  (verse  11),  This  is  a  message 
for  us,  that  we  shall  find  God  upon  the  field  of  our  own  history  no 
less  than  Israel's,  the  history  of  the  twentieth  century  no  less  than 
of  the  centuries  long  dead, 

2.  Next  we  learn — though  this  is  another  aspect  of  the  truth  just 
stated — that  the  present  is  as  full  of  God  as  the  past  ever  was :  "As 
we  have  heard,  so  we  have  seen."  What  a  splendid  confession ! 
All  that  our  fathers  have  told  us  about  God  we  have  grandly  verified 
in  our  own  experience.  The  God  who  defeated  Sennacherib  is  as 
great  as  the  God  who  defeated  Pharaoh.  It  is  a  mistake  to  speak 
of  the  good  old  days,  a  denial  of  the  God  who  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day,  and  forever.  And  so  sure  and  real  was  God  to  the  Psalmist,  in 
this  deliverance,  that  he  looked  out  upon  the  future,  with  the  sublime 
confidence  that  God  would  be  there  as  well.  "He  will  establish  his 
city  forever"  (verse  8),  "He  will  be  our  guide  forever"  (verse  14). 
All  history  is  illuminated  for  the  Psalmist  by  the  divine  presence; 
but  particularly  helpful  is  it  for  us  to  note  his  fine  appreciation  of 
the  present, 

3.  Mark,  further,  the  appeal  to  experience.  Anyone  who  doubted 
God's  power  could  convince  himself  of  it.  "Walk  about  Zion,  count 
her  towers,  mark  her  bulwarks,"  The  city  and  her  defences  are  un- 
touched; count  them  and  see.  If  God  has  really  been  working  in 
the  world,  there  should  be  proof  of  it,  even  obvious  proof ;  and  in  a 
hundred  directions,  the  proof  is  abundant— in  the  advances  of  civili- 
zation, in  the  progress  of  missions,  etc.  The  Christian  should  not 
only  be  wilHng  to  accept  a  challenge,  but  even  ready  himself  to  chal- 


48  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

lenge  doubters  with  indubitable  proof  of  what  God  has  done  for  the 
world  or  for  himself. 

4.  The  last  two  verses  suggest  the  obligation  of  taking  deliberate 
steps  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  God's  goodness.  As  we  have 
heard  from  our  fathers  (verse  8),  so  our  children  have  the  right  to 
hear  from  us;  for  their  faith,  like  ours,  will  be  strengthened,  not 
only  by  what  they  see,  but  by  what  they  hear  (verse  8). 


THE  FORTY-EIGHTH  PSALM  49 

Fifth  Day  :  parapbraee  of  tl^e  psalm 

Our  God  is  a  great  God,  and  worthy  of  all  praise,  in  the  city  of 
Jerusalem  and  on  Zion's  holy  hill.  Fair  she  rises  on  the  northern 
ridge — Mount  Zion,  the  city  of  the  Great  King,  the  joy  of  all  the 
earth.  God  has  revealed  himself  in  her  by  preserving  her  citadels 
from  peril. 

For,  see !  kings  gathered  and  came  on  together ;  but  one  glance  at 
the  city  was  enough.  No  sooner  did  they  see  it  than  they  hastened 
away  in  astonishment,  confusion,  and  terror,  as  of  a  woman  in 
travail — shattered  as  the  east  wind  shatters  the  giant  ships.  The 
present  is  not  less  wondrous  than  the  past.  The  tales  of  the  olden 
time  have  been  matched  by  what  we  have  seen  with  our  own  eyes 
in  this  city  of  our  mighty  God,  Jehovah  of  hosts,  the  city  which  he 
will  preserve  forever. 

Assembled  as  we  are  in  the  temple,  we  call  to  mind  thy  goodness 
to  us  in  this  great  deliverance.  Thy  name  is  known  and  thy  praise 
is  sung  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  world;  for  just 
and  mighty  art  thou.  Let  Jerusalem  and  all  the  cities  of  Judah 
rejoice,  because  of  thy  just  judgments. 

For  who  can  deny  that  Jehovah  has  saved  Jerusalem?  Walk 
round  about  the  city  and  count  her  towers — not  one  of  them  is 
missing.  Her  walls  have  not  been  battered,  nor  have  her  citadels 
been  touched.  Lay  this  up  in  your  heart  and  tell  it  to  your  children, 
that  this  is  the  work  of  Jehovah  our  God,  and  with  the  same  omnip- 
otent love  he  will  guide  us  forever  and  ever. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


so  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  JJointci  for  CansiJeratioa 

1.  Read  2  Kings  19:9-37,  and  consider  whether  Psalm  48  may  be 
appropriately  referred  to  the  situation  there  described. 

2.  Read  Psalm  46,  and  consider  whether  it  may  have  been  written 
for  the  same  occasion  as  Psalm  48. 

3.  On  one  view,  Psalm  48  celebrates  the  deliverance  from  Sen- 
nacherib; on  another,  it  is  a  pilgrim  psalm,  sung  by  pilgrims  who 
had  traveled  to  Jerusalem  to  take  part  in  one  of  the  great  feasts. 

Go  carefully  through  the  psalm  from  each  of  these  points  of  view. 

For  example,  "As  we  have  heard,  so  have  we  seen,"  will  mean, 
on  the  one  view,  that  the  present  is  not  less  wondrous  than  the  past ; 
on  the  other,  that  the  city  is  as  wonderful  as  the  rumors  of  it  had 
led  the  pilgrims  to  expect. 

So,  on  the  one  view,  verses  12  and  13  will  be  the  poet's  appeal 
to  the  people  of  the  city  to  mark  well  how  completely  it  had  been 
preserved  from  destruction ;  on  the  other,  the  pilgrim  singer  appeals 
to  his  companions  to  mark  the  city's  glories  well,  that  they  may  be 
able  to  tell  of  them  to  posterity. 

On  either  view,  verses  4  and  5  refer  to  some  signal  deliverance  of 
the  holy  city. 


THE  FORTY-EIGHTH  PSALM  51 

Seventh  Day:  (©ttefittons 

1.  Enumerate  some  of  the  ways  in  which  God  reveals  himself, 
(cf.  Ps.  48:3;  Ps.  19:1;  Ps.  19:7-11) 

2.  Can  you  point  to  any  recent  or  contemporary  national  or  inter- 
national experience,  which  is  calculated  to  strengthen  faith  in  God? 

3.  Is  it  reasonable  to  speak  of  the  good  old  times? 

4.  Is  your  religion  a  matter  of  hearsay  or  of  experience  (cf.  verse 
8;  also  Job  42:  5)  ?  Does  it  give  you  present  joy  (cf.  verse  11)  as 
wey  as  hope  for  the  future  (cf.  verses  8,  14)  ? 

5.  Take  any  of  the  common  attributes  of  God,  and  show  how  they 
have  been  illustrated  in  history. 

6.  To  what  facts  would  you  point  the  sceptic  as  the  most  con- 
vincing proof  of  the  operation  of  God  in  the  world? 

7.  Do  we  sufficiently  recognize  our  religious  obligations  to  the 
children?  What  means  would  you  suggest  for  perpetuating  a  liv- 
ing sense  of  God's  goodness  in  national  history?. 


STUDY  VI 
QLht iFortpnintl)  ^SBlm 


THE  FORTY-NINTH  PSALM  55 

First  Day  :  CJe  ^m  of  t\\t  Jpfiialm 

Hear  this,  all  ye  peoples, 

Hearken,  all  ye  that  dwell  in  the  world: 
Both  men  of  low  degree  and  high. 

Rich  and  poor  together. 
My  mouth  shall  utter  deep  wisdom, 

And  the  musing  of  my  heart  shall  be  of  understanding. 
I  will  incline  mine  ear  to  a  proverb, 

I  will  open  my  riddle  to  the  sound  of  the  lyre. 
Refrain — (Man  in  honor  abideth  not, 

He  is  Hke  the  beasts  that  perish.) ^ 

Why  should  I  be  afraid  in  the  days  of  misfortune, 

When  my  cunning  foes  compass  me  round  with  iniquity— 

They  that  trust  in  their  wealth, 
And  boast  of  the  abundance  of  their  riches? 

Surely  no  man  can  by  any  means  redeem  himself. 

Or  give  to  God  the  ransom  he  requires — 
That  he  should  live  for  evermore. 

And  not  see  the  pit: 
For  too  costly  is  the  redemption  of  man's  life, 

And  one  must  cease  (from  that  effort)  forever. 
Nay,  he  shall  see  (the  pit)  :  the  (worldly)  wise  die, 

The  fool  and  the  brutish  perish  together, 

And  leave  their  wealth  to  others. 
The  grave  is  their  home  forever. 

Their  habitation  to  all  generations. 

Though  they  called  lands  after  their  names. 
Refrain — Man  in  honor  abideth  not, 

He  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish. 

This  is  the  fate  of  those  that  have  self-confidence, 
And  the  end  of  those  that  have  pleasure  in  their  portion. 

Like  sheep  they  descend  to  Sheol;^ 
Death  is  their  shepherd,  and  straight  down  they  go. 

Soon  their  form  wastes  away. 
And  Sheol  is  their  home. 

^The  proverb,  or  riddle,  appears  to  be  the  refrain  (cf.  verses  12, 
20),  and  some  propose  to  insert  it  here. 
2The  underworld. 


S6  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Surely  God  will  redeem  my  soul  from  the  hand  of  Sheol, 
For  he  will  take  me  (to  himself). 

Therefore  be  not  afraid,  when  a  man  grows  rich, 

When  the  pomp  of  his  house  increases. 
For  of  it  all,  he  takes  nothing  with  him  when  he  dies, 

His  pomp  does  not  go  down  after  him. 
Though  he  counts  himself  happy  while  he  is  alive 

And  wins  praise  because  he  does  well  to  himself; 
Yet  he  shall  go  to  the  generation  of  his  fathers. 

Who  see  the  light  nevermore. 
Refrain — Man  in  honor  abideth  not, 

He  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish. 

Meditate  upon  this  psalm  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books, 
trntil  you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


THE   FORTY-NINTH  PSALM  57 

Second  Day:  d)e  jFutilitp  of  Eicl)efi(  at  5DeatI)  (^crsefi  1-42) 

1.  What  the  Psalmist  has  to  say  he  regards  as  of  universal  and 
vital  importance.  Accordingly  in  the  opening  verses,  he  summons 
the  whole  world  to  hear  it,  men  of  high  degree  and  low,  the  rich 
and  the  poor  together;  the  latter  he  mentions  expressly,  as  the 
theme  of  his  song  is  to  be  the  impotence  of  riches.  He  has  pondered 
the  question  deeply — especially  as  it  was  summarily  expressed  in  the 
popular  proverb  which  he  chooses  as  the  refrain  of  his  own  poem: 
"Man  in  honor  abideth  not,  he  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish."  He 
sings  his  song  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  lyre,  and  under  the 
strains  of  the  music,  the  prophetic  mood  steals  over  him,  in  which  he 
has  an  insight  into  the  riddle  of  life  (cf.  2  Kings  3:  15). 

2.  The  Psalmist  had  been  vexed,  like  many  another  Old  Testament 
singer,  by  the  seeming  victory  of  wickedness  and  defeat  of  piety. 
The  wealth  went  to  the  unscrupulous,  and  the  pious  were  driven 
to  the  wall.  But  his  fear  vanishes,  and  he  becomes  reconciled  to 
his  lowly  and  persecuted  lot,  when  he  begins  to  reflect  on  the  utter 
and  absolute  powerlessness  of  money  to  help  its  possessor  in  the 
great  crisis  of  death.  They  trust  in  their  wealth  and  boast  of  it, 
but  when  the  death-angel  knocks  at  their  door,  not  all  their  money 
can  bribe  him  to  stay  away.  Surely  no  man  can  by  any  means 
redeem  himself  (this,  rather  than  his  brother,  was  no  doubt  the 
original  text).  All  the  money  in  the  world  cannot  buy  back  a  soul 
on  which  Death  is  laying  his  icy  hand.  The  man,  for  all  his  wealth, 
must  go  down  to  the  pit ;  he  cannot  even  take  it  with  him,  he  must 
leave  it  to  others. 

3.  The  verse  beginning  their  inward  thought  is  (verse  11)  should 
undoubtedly  be  rendered:  Graves  are  their  houses  forever,  the  grave 
h  their  everlasting  home.  Throughout  the  psalm  the  poet  dwells 
on  this  thought  with  gruesome  emphasis,  and  the  contrast  here  is 
heightened  by  the  mention  of  the  dead  man's  past  possessions. 
While  he  was  alive,  he  was  the  lord  of  vast  estates:  so  great  was 
he  that  cities,  like  Alexandria,  were  even  named  after  him.  But 
who  cares  for  him  now?  and  where  is  he  now?  In  a  little  narrow 
grave.  He  needs  but  a  tiny  spot  of  the  great  lands  that  were  once 
his  own,  wherein  to  sleep  his  eternal  sleep.  Yes.  the  homely  old 
proverb  is  profoundly  true:  "Man  in  honor  abideth  not,  he  is  like 
the  beasts  that  perish." 


58  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Third  Day  :  QL^t  JJcofipertfi  of  t|)e  (0oot(  at  ^eat^ 
(^tX6t6  13-20) 

1.  This  psalm  does  not,  like  so  many  others — the  first,  for  example 
— elaborate  the  contrast  between  the  destinies  of  the  two  great  types 
of  men.  The  destiny  of  the  good  man  is  only  once  touched  (verse 
15) — very  effectively  indeed,  but  rather  in  a  hint  than  in  a  picture; 
but  the  general  theme  of  the  psalm  is  the  essential  impotence  of 
riches,  their  inability  to  help  a  man  when  he  needs  help  the  most — 
a  theme  which  is  gathered  up  in  the  refrain. 

2.  After  the  striking  contrast  between  the  vast  domains  of  which 
the  rich  were  lords  when  they  were  alive,  and  the  little  grave  in 
which  they  have  to  lie  at  the  last,  the  Psalmist  renews  his  grim 
description  of  their  fate.  He  compares  them  to  a  flock  of  silly 
sheep,  who  are  driven  down  from  the  earth  to  the  underworld  by 
the  stern  shepherd  Death.  To  appreciate  the  vivid  force  of  this 
picture,  we  have  to  remember  that  the  verb  in  "Death  shall  be  their 
shepherd"  is  the  very  same  as  that  in  the  first  verse  of  Psalm  23, 
"Jehovah  is  my  shepherd."  They  will  not  have  the  gracious  Jehovah 
to  lead  them  in  the  other  world  to  pastures  green  and  waters  of  rest ; 
but  the  grim,  terrible,  inexorable  Death,  who  will  drive  them  down 
to  the  dark  and  dusty  underworld. 

3.  "But  God  will  redeem  my  soul."  What  a  startling  contrast! 
The  same  word  is  used  as  in  verse  7.  Money  cannot  redeem  a  soul, 
but  God  can.  The  unredeemed  waste  away  in  Sheol,  the  dreadful 
underworld;  "but  God  will  redeem  me  from  the  hand  of  Sheol" — 
as  if  Sheol  were  a  monster,  stretching  out  his  cruel  hand  to  grasp 
and  hold  him  forever.  But  God  the  omnipotent  draws  him  back: 
"for" — as  the  Hebrew  says,  with  exquisite  simplicity — "he  will  take 
me,"  the  word  used  for  the  "taking"  of  Enoch  (Gen.  5 :  24)  and 
Elijah  (2  Kings  2:9,  10).  There  is  something  wonderful  about  the 
reticence  of  the  Psalmist  here.  How  God  will  take  him,  and 
whither,  he  does  not  say;  he  does  not  know.  Enough  for  him  that 
God  would  take  him  to  himself. 


THE  FORTY-NINTH  PSALM  59 

Fourth  Day  :  CTlie  filtsiK^t  of  tl)e  J)0alm  for  (iH« 

1.  The  general  message  of  the  psalm  is  the  impotence  of  riches 
to  help  us  when  we  need  help  most — in  the  hour  of  death.  One 
great  scholar  has  said  that  the  Psalmist  fails  to  fulfil  the  expecta- 
tions which  he  raised  by  the  trumpet  tones  of  the  opening  verses ;  for 
the  chief  thought  of  the  psalm,  that  riches  are  no  defence  against 
death,  is  as  trivial  as  possible.  But  is  it  not  just  the  commonplace 
that  is  often  most  worthy  of  attention,  and  most  apt  to  be  neglected  ? 
Is  not  this,  obvious  as  it  is,  precisely  the  thought  that  is  so  seldom 
laid  to  heart  by  those  who  spend  their  lives  in  the  effort  to  amass 
as  much  as  they  can?  They  go  on  adding  house  to  house  and  field 
to  field,  forgetting  the  truth  of  which,  with  grim  realism,  the 
Psalmist  reminds  us,  that  at  the  end  of  all  their  effort  lies  a  little 
grave. 

2.  There  can  be  no  question  that  this  thought,  if  firmly  held  before 
the  mind  in  our  efforts  to  succeed  in  life,  would  tend  to  throw  things 
into  their  proper  perspective.  It  would  open  our  eyes  to  the  things 
that  really  matter.  The  things  that  matter  now  are  the  things  that 
will  matter  then;  and  money,  says  the  Psalmist,  can  do  nothing  for 
the  dying  or  the  dead.  It  cannot  bribe  the  death-angel,  and  when 
the  man  has  been  driven  down,  like  a  sheep,  by  the  stem  Shepherd, 
into  the  valley  of  the  unbroken  shadow  (verse  19),  it  cannot  bring 
him  back  again. 

3.  This,  then,  is  the  Psalmist's  solution  of  the  riddle  of  life.  Now 
the  rich  man  "blesses  his  soul,"  and  "does  well  to  himself,"  while 
out  of  the  depths  of  his  loneliness  and  sorrow  the  poor  man  lifts 
a  tear-stained  face  to  God.  But  wait  till  death,  and  then  we  shall 
see.  Some  psalmists  (cf.  Ps.  37 : 9)  had  thought  the  compensa- 
tions would  be  in  this  world;  this  Psalmist  sees  deeper.  Whether 
there  are  compensations  here  or  not,  at  any  rate  at  death  the  differ- 
ence will  be  infinite.  "God  will  redeem  my  soul  from  the  hand  of 
Sheol,  for  he  will  receive  me."  There  is  a  deeper  truth  even  than 
this,  caught  in  a  divine  moment  by  the  writer  of  Psalm  73,  that  we 
may  be  continually  with  God — here  as  well  as  there;  that  he  not 
only  will  receive  us  to  glory,  but  that  he  guides  us,  even  in  this 
world,  by  his  counsel,  across  the  pilgrimage  of  life  (verses  23,  24). 
Still  our  Psalmist  has  chosen  to  concentrate  his  gaze  upon  the  great 
moment  of  death,  and  with  extraordinary  power  and  simplicity  com- 
pelled us  to  feel  that  nothing  matters  then  but  (jod. 


6o  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 


Fifth  Day  :  |]arapl)ra6e  of  tl^e 

The  riddle  that  has  troubled  me  concerns  all  the  world.  Listen, 
then,  all  of  you — high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  when  I  talk  of  it; 
for  I  shall  speak  as  a  wise  man  who  has  meditated  deeply  thereon, 
and  the  answer  that  has  come  to  me  I  will  proclaim  to  the  sound  of 
the  lyre.  (Here  is  the  riddle  expressed  in  the  popular  proverb: 
The  man  of  pomp  abides  not  therein ;  like  the  beast  he  perishes.) 

I  am  tempted  to  fear,  as  I  suffer  from  cunning  and  wickedness 
on  all  sides  of  me,  from  men  who  trust  in  their  wealth  and  boast 
of  their  vast  riches.  But  why  should  I  be  afraid?  Not  one  can 
save  himself  from  death  by  giving  God  a  ransom;  for  the  ransom 
of  the  soul  is  too  costly,  ana  the  man  must  leave  life  forever.  Yea, 
he  shall  assuredly  see  the  grave.  For  the  rich  fool,  despite  his 
worldly  wisdom,  perishes,  and  leaves  his  wealth  to  others.  The 
grave  is  his  eternal  home,  even  though  he  has  called  whole  lands  his 
own.  The  man  of  pomp  abides  not  therein;  like  the  beast  he  per- 
ishes. This  is  the  fate  of  all  who  are  foolishly  confident  and  who 
boast  of  their  wealth.  Death  drives  them  into  the  grave,  as  the 
shepherd  his  sheep,  and  down  they  go;  and  soon  their  image  fades 
away  in  the  grave  which  is  their  home. 

But  God  himself  shall  redeem  my  soul  from  the  hand  of  the  grave. 
Yes,  he  shall  take  me  to  himself. 

So  the  sight  of  the  rich  man  with  his  vast  wealth  need  not  make 
thee  afraid ;  for  not  a  fragment  of  it  all  can  he  take  with  him  when 
he  dies,  nor  can  his  wealth  go  down  after  him  into  the  grave.  For 
though  he  deemed  himself  happy  in  his  life-time  and  was  praised 
for  his  good  fortune,  yet  in  the  end  he  must  dwell  with  his  fathers 
in  their  home  of  everlasting  darkness.  The  man  of  pomp  abides  not 
therein ;  like  the  beast  he  perishes. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


THE  FORTY-NINTH  PSALM  6i 

Sixth  Day  :  |}otnt6  for  ConfiiUeration 

1.  '*A  man's  life  consisteth  tiot  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
which  he  possesseth"  (Luke  12:15).  Is  not  much  of  our  eager 
life  a  practical  denial  of  this  word  of  Jesus? 

2.  Consider  (a)  the  parable  of  the  rich  fool  (Luke  12:16-21), 
(b)  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  (Luke  16:19-31),  in 
the  light  of  the  teaching  of  this  psalm. 

3.  In  Mark  10:24  we  read,  "How  hard  is  it  for  them  that  trust 
in  riches  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God !"  It  is  significant,  how- 
ever, that  many  good  manuscripts  omit  the  phrase  "that  trust  in 
riches."  Those  who  have  riches  may  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God,  though  with  difficulty  (verse  23)  ;  but  for  those  who  trust  in 
riches  (cf.  Ps.  49 :  6)  it  is  not  only  hard,  but  impossible. 

4.  Do  you  think  the  writer  of  this  psalm  has  a  surer  hold  of  the 
future  life  than  the  writer  of  Ps.  39?  Compare  Psalm  39:7  (and 
13)  with  Ps.  49:  15- 

5.  Read  Psalm  73 :  23-26,  and  note  the  writer's  powerful  con- 
sciousness of  the  divine  presence  v/ith  him  in  this  world,  as  well 
as  his  faith  that  afterwards  he  will  be  taken  to  glory. 

6.  The  following  quotation  from  Everyman,  perhaps  the  finest  of 
the  Morality  plays  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  middle  ages, 
is  a  remarkably  vivid  illustration  of  the  teaching  of  the  psalm.  Its 
peculiar  appositeness  will  excuse  the  length  of  the  quotation.  Every- 
man, who  represents  humanity,  is  summoned  by  Death  to  go  on  his 
long  journey.  In  his  distress  he  appeals  in  turn  to  Fellowship,  Kin- 
dred, and  Goods  (that  is.  Riches),  but  they  all  renounce  and  forsake 
him.  The  extract  is  taken  from  the  dialogue  of  Everyman  with 
Goods : 

Everyman: 

Come  hither,  Good,  in  all  the  haste  thou  may; 
For  of  counsel  I  must  desire  thee. 

Goods: 

Sir,  an  ye  in  the  world  have  sorrow  or  adversity, 

That  can  I  help  you  to  remedy  shortly. 

It  is  another  disease  that  grieveth  me ; 

In  this  world  it  is  not,  I  tell  thee  so 

I  am  sent  for  another  way  to  go, 

To  give  a  strait  account  general 

Before  the  highest  Jupiter  of  all ; 

And  all  my  life  I  have  had  my  pleasure  in  thee, 

Therefore  I  pray  thee  now  go  with  me ; 


62  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

For,  peradventure,  thou  mayest  before  God  Almighty 

My  reckoning  help  to  clean  and  purify, 

For  it  is  said  ever  among, 

That  money  maketh  all  right  that  is  wrong. 
G.        Nay,  nay,  Everyman,  I  sing  another  song ; 

I  follow  no  man  in  such  voyages, 

For,  an  I  went  with  thee, 

Thou  shouldest  fare  much  the  worse  for  me ; 

For  because  on  me  thou  diddest  set  thy  mind, 

Thy  reckoning  I  have  made  blotted  and  blind. 

That  thine  account  thou  cannot  make  truly ; 

And  that  hast  thou  for  the  love  of  me. 
E.        That  would  grieve  me  full  sore, 

When  I  should  come  to  that  fearful  answer; 

Up,  and  let  us  go  thither  together. 
G.        Nay,  not  so ;  I  am  too  brittle,  I  may  not  endure ; 

I  will  follow  no  man  one  foot,  be  ye  sure. 
*    *    *    * 

E.        Ah,  Good,  thou  hast  long  had  my  hearty  love  ; 

I  gave  thee  that  which  should  be  the  Lord's  above ; 

But  wilt  thou  not  go  with  me  indeed? 

I  pray  thee  truth  to  say. 
G.        No,  so  God  me  speed ; 

Therefore  farewell,  and  have  good  day. 
E.        Oh,  to  whom  shall  I  make  my  moan. 

For  to  go  with  me  in  that  heavy  journey? 


THE  FORTY-NINTH  PSALM  63 

Seventh  Day:  ©ucfitiorwf 

1.  What  is  your  personal  attitude  to  money? 

2.  What  is  Christ's  teaching  about  money? 

3.  What  is  the  place  of  money  in  the  kingdom  of  God? 

(Note  that  the  wealthy  men  whose  fate  the  Psalmist  con- 
templates, are  not  only  wealthy,  but  wicked  [verse  5].  The 
last  verse  in  the  English  version  of  the  psalm,  "Man  that  is 
in  honor  and  understandeth  not  is  like  the  beasts  that 
perish,"  is  probably  wrong;  there  is  only  a  single  letter  of 
difference  in  the  original,  between  this  and  "Man  in  honor 
ahideth  not"  (verse  12).  Nevertheless,  the  words  represent 
a  great  truth.  It  is  the  rich  fool,  the  rich  man  who  has  no 
insight  into  the  real  place  and  meaning  of  money,  who 
perishes.) 

4.  Would  you  be  contented,  if  you  were  very  poor? 

5.  Do  you  ever  contemplate  your  own  death?     Has  the  thought 
of  it  any  real  influence  upon  your  conduct  and  aims  ? 

6.  What  are  your  chief  aims  in  life?    Will  you  be  glad  to  have 
cherished  them,  when  you  come  to  die? 


STUDY  VII 
CJe  jFiftp'-fieconU  pgalm 


THE  FIFTY-SECOND  PSALM  67 

First  Day  :   Cbe  ^ept  of  tbe  pcalm 

Why  glory  in  mischief,  thou  mighty  man? 

The  mercy  of  God  is  all  the  day. 
Thy  tongue  deviseth  ruin, 

Like  a  whetted  razor,  thou  worker  of  fraud. 
Thou  lovest  evil  and  not  good, 

Lies,  and  not  right  speaking; 
Thou  lovest  all  voracious  words 

Thou  deceitful  tongue! 

But  God,  on  his  part,  shall  tear  thee  down  forever. 

Grasp  thee,  and  pull  thee  out  of  the  tent, 

And  root  thee  out  of  the  land  of  the  living. 
The  righteous  shall  see,  and  fear, 

And  laugh  at  him. 
"Look!"  they  will  say,  "there  is  the  great  man  that  made  not  God 
his  stronghold. 

But  trusted  in  the  mass  of  his  riches. 

And  felt  strong  in  his  substance." 

But  as  for  me,  I  am  in  God's  house  like  a  green  olive  tree: 

I  trust  in  God's  mercy  for  ever  and  aye. 
I  will  praise  thee  forever,  because  thou  hast  done  this. 

And  I  will  wait  on  thy  name — for  it  is  good — 

In  the  presence  of  those  that  love  thee. 

Meditate  upon  the  psalm  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books, 
until  you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


68  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day  :  Cl)e  jFate  of  ^rroffance  (Scrficfi  1-5) 

1.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the  superscriptions  formed  no  part  of 
the  original  psalms,  and  many  scholars  lay  little  or  no  stress  upon 
them  in  their  efforts  to  discover  the  occasion  and  origin  of  a  psalm. 
Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  propriety  of  the  unusually  elaborate 
superscription  to  Psalm  52,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  psalm 
is  much  more  than  a  meditation ;  it  emerges  out  of  a  very  vivid  and 
definite  historical  situation. 

2.  The  man  addressed  so  abruptly  and  ironically  as  a  "hero"  or 
"mighty  man"  in  the  first  verse  is  described,  briefly  indeed,  but  in 
touches  so  sharp  and  clear  that  we  can  almost  fancy  we  see  his  sleek, 
cunning  face,  and  hear  the  boastful  words  roll  from  his  foolish  lips. 
He  is  well-to-do,  with  such  an  abundance  of  wealth  to  trust  in — 
like  the  man  who  vexed  the  singer  of  Psalm  49  (verse  6) — that  the 
wisdom  or  necessity  of  trusting  in  God  never  occurs  to  him  (verse 
7).  He  is  clearly  a  man  of  power  and  importance;  his  downfall 
confirms  the  faith  of  the  righteous  in  a  moral  order,  and  is  wel- 
comed by  them  with  jubilation  (verse  6).  In  particular  he  uses 
his  influence  in  treacherous  and  despicable  ways ;  he  is  cunning  and 
a  liar.  His  tongue  is  a  tongue  of  deceit;  he  loves  lies  rather  than 
truth,  though  that  is  but  one  manifestation,  within  the  sphere  of 
words,  of  a  character  that  "loves  evil  rather  than  good"  (verse  3). 

3.  But  power  and  cunning  usually  go  hand  in  hand  with  cruelty, 
and  this  "hero"  was  no  exception.  Especially  did  his  cruelty  reveal 
itself  through  that  subtlest  medium  of  all,  the  medium  of  speech. 
His  words  were  voracious  words,  that  "devoured"  his  neighbors — 
their  peace,  their  property,  their  reputation,  perhaps  their  life.  His 
tongue  was  like  a  razor  whetted  to  the  finest  edge,  so  that  it  should 
cut  deep.  No  wonder  that  with  his  wealth,  influence,  and  disregard 
of  God,  he,  uttering  boastful  words,  vexed  righteous  souls. 

4.  But  the  Psalmist  has  too  deep  a  faith  in  the  moral  order  to  be 
permanently  vexed  by  such  a  man.  He  will  only  have  his  day,  and 
his  end  will  be  destruction.  God  (verse  5),  whom  this  braggart  has 
ignored  (verse  7),  may  be  trusted  to  uphold  the  moral  government 
of  his  world ;  and  in  a  succession  of  powerful  figures,  the  Psalmist 
expresses  his  earnest  faith  in  the  certainty  of  such  a  man's  destruc- 
tion. He  shall  be  torn  down,  as  a  lofty  tower  is  demolished  (same 
word  as  Judges  8:9);  he  shall  be  seized,  as  a  piece  of  coal  is  seized 
with  the  tongs;  he  shall  be  plucked  out  of  his  tent;  and,  deeply  as 
he  seems  to  be  rooted,  he  shall  be  torn  up  by  the  roots  and,  as  it 
were,  hurled  out  of  the  land  of  the  living.  All  men  must  die, 
but  the  Psalmist  anticipates  for  this  "hero"  a  swift  and  violent 
doom.     That  is  his  faith  and  his  consolation. 


THE  FIFTY-SECOND  PSALM  69 

Third  Day:  ^ht  fop  of  t\)t  jFaitbful  (Scrficfi  6-9) 

1.  In  two  ways  does  the  Psalmist  reconcile  himself  to  the  exist- 
ence of  the  powerful  and  unscrupulous  braggart  who  vexed  him ; 
first,  as  we  have  seen,  by  contemplating  his  terrible  and  irrevocable 
doom,  and  secondly,  by  putting  him  into  his  proper  perspective  in 
the  world.  After  all,  he  was  only  as  a  spot  on  the  sun.  He  might 
boast  and  lie;  nevertheless,  "the  mercy  of  God  was  all  the  day" 
(verse  i).  This,  after  all,  is  the  stupendous  fact,  in  comparison 
with  which  all  the  other  facts  that  tempt  men  to  murmur  and  doubt 
are  as  nothing. 

2.  But  apart  from  that  great  and  radiant  fact,  which  is  the 
sublimest  of  all  consolations  to  those  that  have  eyes  to  see  it,  the 
doom  of  such  a  "hero"  as  is  described  in  verses  1-3  is  certain ;  and 
when  good  men  see  it,  they  shall  fear,  that  is,  they  shall  reverence 
this  mysterious  power,  which  so  surely  makes  for  righteousness, 
and  they  shall  laugh  at  their  fallen  enemy.  From  a  Christian  stand- 
point, such  an  expression  of  satisfaction  may  seem  unworthy;  but, 
according  to  the  usage  of  the  Old  Testament,  this  is  not  the  ma- 
licious laughter  of  a  petty  personal  triumph,  but  the  laughter  of 
joy  at  the  vindication  of  the  moral  order. 

3.  The  "hero"  has  had  his  turn,  now  it  is  the  turn  of  the  right- 
eous; and  they  will  say:  "Look!  there  is  the  man  that  trusted  in 
his  money,  and  not  in  his  God."  The  man  of  lying  tongue,  of 
materialistic  ambitions  and  temper,  is  a  practical  atheist,  whatever 
be  his  profession ;  and  this  is  the  end  of  him.  The  money  in  which 
he  trusted  will  do  nothing  for  him,  when  God  comes  to  uproot 
him  out  of  the  land  of  the  living  (cf.  Ps.  49 :  6,  7)  ;  and  the  heart 
of  the  righteous  is  eased,  and  their  faith  confirmed  (verse  6),  as 
they  see  such  a  one  swept  suddenly  away  from  the  place  where  he 
wrought  so  much  harm. 

4.  The  moral  order,  however,  has  its  positive  as  well  as  its  nega- 
tive vindication.  The  arrogant  blusterer  shall  be  torn  down  from 
his  pedestal;  "but  as  for  me.  I  am  in  God's  house  like  a  green 
olive  tree."  He  has  no  fear  of  being  torn  up  by  the  roots ;  like  an 
olive  tree,  he  flourishes.  He  will  not  be  swept,  by  some  sudden  gust 
of  doom,  off  the  land  of  the  living;  he  has  his  place  secure  as  a 
guest  in  the  house  of  God  (perhaps  originally  the  temple).  And 
why?  Because  "my  trust  is" — not  in  the  multitude  of  my  riches 
(verse  7),  but — "in  God's  mercy  for  ever  and  ever."  Desolation, 
annihilation,  on  the  one  hand;  beauty,  prosperity,  security,  on  the 
other.  Such  is  the  infinite  difference  between  the  destinies  of  the 
good  and  the  bad. 

5.  The  Psalmist  having  beheld,  at  least  with  the  eye  of  faith,  the 


70  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

vindication  of  the  moral  order,  which  means  the  triumph  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  vows  to  praise  him  forever,  because  he  has  secured 
this  vindication  and  triumph,  and  to  proclaim  his  goodness  (or, 
according  to  the  ordinary  text,  to  wait  upon  his  name,  that  is,  him- 
self) in  the  presence  of  his  loyal  servants. 


THE  FIFTY-SECOND  PSALM  71 

Fourth  Day  :  Cl)e  iHefifiaffe  of  t|)e  JJcalm  for  ^Hfi 

1.  The  difference  between  the  destinies  of  the  good  and  the  bad 
is  a  favorite  theme  of  the  psalmists  (cf.  Ps.  i)  ;  but  the  first  verse 
of  this  psalm  sets  the  moral  anomalies  of  the  world  in  a  fresh  and 
striking  light.  The  boasting  of  the  big  man,  his  calumnies  and 
his  cruelties,  may  be  vexatious  enough;  but  they  have  little  power 
to  destroy  the  peace  of  the  man  who  remembers  that  "the  mercy  of 
God  is  all  the  day."i  Those  may  be  great  facts,  but  this  is  an 
infinitely  greater  fact;  and  the  art  of  happiness  consists  in  seeing 
life  in  its  true  perspective.  The  love  of  God  as  expressed  in  the 
freshness  of  the  morning,  in  the  blessed  repose  of  the  night,  in  the 
mysterious  succession  of  the  seasons,  seedtime  and  harvest,  summer 
and  winter,  in  the  stimulus  of  work,  in  the  joys  of  friendship  and 
love,  in  the  hopes  and  the  consolations  of  religion — that  love  is 
all  the  day;  it  is,  when  we  consider  it  well,  the  one  everlasting  and 
overwhelming  fact  of  experience.  And  when  we  can  see  the  inci- 
dents which  distress  or  perplex  us,  against  that  glorious  background, 
we  have  mastered  the  secret,  not  only  of  being  resigned  to  our  lot, 
but  of  rejoicing  in  it  evermore      (i  Thess.  5  :  16). 

2.  We  are  also  reminded  by  this  psalm  of  the  deadly  power  of  an 
unchastened  tongue.  The  "hero"  of  the  psalm  was  rich,  powerful, 
cunning,  and  radically  bad;  but  it  is  worthy  of  note  that,  though 
furnished  with  such  an  equipment  for  evil,  it  is  upon  the  ruin 
wrought  by  his  wicked  tongue  that  the  Psalmist  concentrates  his 
chief  attention.  Most  of  his  baleful  power  expressed  itself  there. 
Like  a  razor,  it  cut  deep  and  sharp  into  the  reputations  of  other 
men;  like  an  open  grave  (Ps.  5:9),  it  swallowed  them  up.  And 
the  destruction  described  in  the  dreadful  words  of  verse  5  is  felt  by 
the  Psalmist  to  be  none  too  terrible  for  the  man  of  sharp  and 
slanderous  tongue. 

3.  Christian  sentiment  may  be  shocked  by  such  a  confession  of 
faith;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is  nothing  ignoble  in 
the  standpoint  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  but  the  vehement  ex- 
pression of  a  passionate  belief  in  the  moral  order,  and  a  desire  to 
see  its  consummation  hastened.  It  is  surprising,  and,  to  a  Christian 
sense,  disappointing,  to  find  two  psalms  so  noble  as  104  and  139 
ending  as  they  do,  with  a  prayer  for  the  obliteration  of  the  wicked. 
But  it  is  because  the  Psalmist  is  himself  so  astonished  at  the  good- 
ness of  Jehovah  of  which  the  world  is  so  full   (104),  so  overawed 

iSome,  who  think  this  clause  too  abrupt  for  such  a  context,  amend 
the  text,  by  a  very  simple  change,  to  read,  "Why  dost  thou  boast 
thyself  against  the  godly  man  continually?" 


72  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

by  the  thought  of  his  loving  omnipresence  (i39)»  that  he  feels  there 
can  be  no  uhimate  place  in  the  world  for  men  who  ignore  that 
presence  and  defy  that  goodness.  Those  upon  whom  the  psalmists 
imprecate  the  divine  vengeance  are  not  simply  personal  enemies; 
they  are  enemies  of  God  and  of  morality  (cf.  Ps.  94:1,  6).  We 
dare  not  take  their  violent  words  upon  our  lips;  but  it  would  be  well 
for  us  if  we  more  fully  shared  their  passionate  faith  in  the  divme 
government  of  the  world,  of  which  those  words  are  but  the  vehement 
expression. 


THE  FIFTY-SECOND  PSALM  73 

Fifth  Day  :  parapbrafie  of  tlje  pcalm 

Why  dost  thou  brag,  O  blatant  hero,  of  the  ruin  thou  art  working 
with  thy  sharp  and  deadly  tongue?  Despite  it,  and  mightier  than  it, 
is  the  radiant  mercy  of  God  which  fills  every  day  and  all  the  day! 
But  thine  affections  are  set  on  evil  and  falsehood,  on  ruinous  and 
deceitful  words,  and  not  on  goodness  and  truth. 

Thou  shalt  have  thy  reward.  God  will  make  an  utter  end  of  thee, 
seizing  thee  as  one  seizes  coal  with  the  tongs.  He  shall  tear  thee 
out  of  the  tent,  and  root  thee  out  of  the  land  of  the  living,  to  the 
delight  of  the  righteous,  who  shall  exult  when  they  see  it.'  Such, 
they  will  say,  is  the  fate  of  the  man  who  presumptuously  trusts  in 
the  power  of  his  vast  riches,  instead  of  in  God. 

But  I,  too,  have  my  reward.  I  flourish  like  the  green  olive  trees 
m  the  temple  court,  because  my  trust  is  in  the  mercy  of  God  con- 
tmually.  I  will  praise  thee  forever  because  of  thy  providence,  and 
I  will  wait  upon  thee  in  the  presence  of  thy  people. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


74  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  Points  for  ConfiiUcration 

1.  "The  storm,  the  rain  slowly  rotting  the  harvest,  children  sick- 
ening in  cellars  are  obvious;  but  equally  obvious  are  an  evening  in 
June,  the  delight  of  men  and  women  in  one  another,  in  music,  and 
in  the  exercise  of  thought."— Mark  Rutherford. 

2.  "His  power  broken  at  Marston  Moor,  Charles  I  was  a  hostage 
or  a  prisoner  in  the  Scottish  camp  at  Newark.  The  triumphant 
ministers  insulted  their  captive  by  ordering  Psalm  52  to' be  sung: 
'Why  boastest  thou  thyself,  thou  tyrant,  that  thou  canst  do  mischief; 
whereas  the  goodness  of  God  endureth  yet  daily?'  It  was  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Psalms  that  Charles  robbed  the  insult  of  its  sting. 
His  only  reply  was  to  ask  for  Psalm  56:  'Be  merciful  unto  me,  O 
God,  for  man  goeth  about  to  devour  me;  he  is  daily  fighting,  and 
troubling  me.  Mine  enemies  are  daily  in  hand  to  swallow  ^e^up; 
for  they  be  many  that  fight  against  me,  O  Thou  Most  Highest.'  "— 
(Prothero,  The  Psalms  in  Human  Life,  p.  242.) 

3.  On  the  vanity  of  outward  religious  service  unaccompanied  by 
a  resolute  control  of  the  tongue,  see  the  striking  word  of  James 
in  1 :  26. 

4.  James  seems  to  have  been  specially  impressed  by  the  perils  and 
responsibilities  of  speech.     Consider  carefully  3^2-8. 

Is   there   any   word   of   Jesus   on   this    subject?      (cf.    Matthew, 

12:36,37-)  ,     ,       ,  .u 

5.  The  cursing  psalms  need  not  be  defended;  but  how  may  they 

be  explained? 

Note  that  their  violent  temper  is  sometimes,  even  in  the 
Old  Testament,  expressly  or  implicitly,  repudiated.  The 
great  sufferer  in  Psalm  22  utters  no  prayer  for  vengeance ; 
and  Job  (31:29,  30),  in  his  noble  defence,  makes  the  re- 
markable claim: 
"Never  did  I  rejoice  at  the  destruction  of  him  that  hated  me, 

Or  lifted  myself  up  when  calamity  overtook  him : 

Never  did  I  suffer  my  mouth  to  sin, 

By  asking  his  life  with  a  curse." 

6.  Consider  the  precious  fellowship  into  which  the  man  of  faith  is 
brought  (verse  9). 


THE  FIFTY-SECOND  PSALM  75 

Seventh  Day:  (©ucfitions 

1.  Is  the  "mercy  of  God"  a  real  fact  to  you? 

2.  Where  do  you  find  it  in  your  experience? 

3.  Is  it  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  to  look  for  it 
in  the  beauty  and  order  of  the  world  without,  the  air  and  the  light, 
the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  as  well  as  in  the  inner  experience?  (cf.  Ps. 
136:1-9,  25.) 

4.  Is  the  mercy  of  God  so  real  and  so  precious  to  you  that  you 
can  remain  trustful,  contented,  and  glad,  in  the  face  of  trial  ? 

5.  Has  anyone's  peace  or  reputation  ever  suffered  from  your 
sharp  tongue? 

6.  Do  you  sufficiently  recognize  that  the  disciplining  of  the  tongue 
is  a  grave  religious  obligation? 

7.  Have  you  any  sense,  in  your  personal  experience,  of  the  deep 
and  quiet  joy  expressed  in  verse  8  of  Psalm  52? 


STUDY  VIII 
€^t  Binettetl)  J)£(alm 


THE  NINETIETH  PSALM  79 

First  Day  :  Cle  (E^tj:t  of  t\)t  pwlm 

Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling-place 

In  all  generations. 
Ere  the  mountains  were  born, 

Or  the  earth  and  the  world  were  brought  forth, 
From  everlasting  to  everlasting  art  thou,  O  God. 

Thou  turnest  man  back  to  dust, 

And  sayest,  "Return,  ye  children  of  men." 
For  a  thousand  years  are  in  thy  sight 

But  as  yesterday,  when  it  is  past, 
And  as  a  watch  in  the  night. 

Thou  dost  sweep  them  away  like  a  flood;  they  fall  asleep.^ 

They  are  like  the  grass  which  grows  up : 
In  the  morning  it  blossoms  and  grows  up. 

In  the  evening  it  is  cut  down  and  withers. 

For  we  are  consumed  through  thine  anger, 

And  through  thy  wrath  are  we  confounded. 
Thou  hast  set  our  iniquities  before  thee, 

Our  secret  sins  in  the  light  of  thy  countenance. 
For  all  our  days  decline  by  reason  of  thy  wrath. 

We  spend  our  years  as  a  sigh. 

Our  years,  at  their  height,  are  seventy, 

Or,  at  the  utmost,  eighty ; 
Yet  is  their  breadth  but  toil  and  trouble ; 

For  quickly  it  passes,  and  we  fly  away. 

Who  recognizes  the  power  of  thine  anger? 

And  who  stands  in  (wise)  awe  of  thy  wrath? 
O  teach  us  so  to  number  our  days, 

That  we  may  reap  the  harvest  of  a  wise  heart. 

Return,  O  Jehovah!     How  long? 

And  have  pity  upon  thy  servants. 
Satisfy  us  in  the  morning  with  thy  kindness, 

That  all  our  days  we  may  be  glad  and  jubilant. 
Make  us  glad  in  proportion  to  the  days  of  our  affliction. 

To  the  years  of  our  sorrowful  experience. 

iBy  a  very  simple  change,  one  scholar  has  suggested  a  reading 
which  harmonizes  admirably  with  the  following  metaphor:  "Thou 
dost  sow  them  year  by  year." 


80  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Let  thy  doing  be  seen  of  thy  servants, 

And  thy  glory  upon  their  children. 
Let  the  favor  of  Jehovah  our  God  be  upon  us, 

And  the  work  of  our  hands  establish  upon  us: 

The  work  of  our  hands — establish  it. 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate  upon  it  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books,  until 
you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


THE   NINETIETH  PSALM  8i 

Second  Day  :  2r()e  ^reuitp  anti  patl)Ofi;  of  l^ttman  life 
(Serges  \S) 

1.  The  writer  of  this  noble  psalm  was  deeply  moved  by  two  great 
thoughts  which  he  could  not  help  contrasting — the  littleness  and 
sadness  of  human  life,  and  the  eternity  of  God.  The  language  of 
the  earlier  part  of  the  psalm  is  so  large  and  general  that  it  may 
well  be  regarded  as  a  lament  over  all  human  life;  every  man  can 
make  its  sadly  solemn  words  his  own.  But  from  verse  13,  at  any 
rate,  it  is  plain  that  this  "prayer,"  as  it  is  called  in  the  superscrip- 
tion, is  offered  on  behalf  of  Israel ;  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  psalm 
perhaps  has  also  Israel  specially  in  view.  Though  true  of  all  men, 
it  was  peculiarly  true  of  Israel,  that  the  Lord  had  been  her  dwelling 
place  in  all  her  generations. 

2.  The  word  with  which  the  psalm  opens  is  not  the  tender 
"Jehovah,"  but  the  majestic  "Lord,"  a  fitting  word  to  introduce 
him  as  the  God  of  eternity.  Yet  though  majestic,  we  are  reminded 
at  the  very  outset  that  he  is  also  gracious,  "a  dwelling-place  to  us 
[humanity  or  Israel?]  age  after  age."  The  strong  mountains  might 
seem  to  be  eternal ;  but  God  was  before  them,  existing  from  the  un- 
thinkable past,  on  through  the  life  of  mountains  and  men,  to  the 
unimaginable  future. 

3.  He  is  the  one  abiding  fact  in  the  universe.  At  his  call  the 
generations  come  up  out  of  nothing,  and  go  back  again  to  the  dust. 
Time  has  no  meaning  for  him.  A  thousand  years,  which  it  takes 
thirty  generations  of  men  to  traverse,  are  to  him  but  as  a  day,  a 
dead  day,  yesterday;  nay,  shorter  than  that — part  of  a  day,  rather 
part  of  a  night,  like  a  watch,  a  third  part,  of  the  dark  night.  The 
Psalmist  calls  up  image  after  image  to  suggest  the  utter  pathos  and 
brevity  of  our  little  lives.  It  is  as  if  a  roaring  torrent  comes,  which 
nothing  can  stand  before,  and  carries  them  away.  The  life  which 
was  swept  remorselessly  away  by  the  torrent,  is  now  compared  to 
the  grass  which  comes  up  in  the  morning,  only  to  be  cut  down  and 
die  in  the  evening.  Life's  day,  at  the  longest,  is  short.  It  begins  in 
a  morning  of  promise;  but  after  a  few  short  hours,  the  evening 
falls,  and  the  promise  remains  unfulfilled  forever.  All  human  life 
is  fiying  swiftly  into  the  night.  How  brief  and  sad  it  all  is  when 
placed  m  contrast  with  the  calm  and  measureless  eternity  of  God ! 

4.  Now  why  should  life  be  so  sad  and  so  short?  Because,  answers 
the  Psalmist,  the  anger  of  God  rests  upon  it.  And  why  is  God 
angry?  Because  of  our  sins.  The  answer  is  much  the  same  as  that 
given  in  Genesis  3.  If  life  is  full  of  toil  and  trouble,  it  is  because 
man  has  sinned  and  God  is  angry.  The  sorrow  that  lies  upon  life 
IS  of  man's  own  making.    The  Psalmist  knows  whereof  he  speaks. 


82  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

His  people  are  enduring  the  sorrows  of  exile,  or  more  probably  the 
sorrows,  just  as  keen,  that  followed  the  return  from  exile;  and 
these  sorrows  are  almost  invariably  interpreted  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  punishment  for  sin.  So  it  was  no  mere  commonplace  confession, 
but  one  wrung  out  of  the  depths  of  a  sorrowful  experience  spiritu- 
ally interpreted,  when  the  Psalmist  said,  "It  is  by  reason  of  thine 
anger  that  we  (Israel)  are  consumed,  for  thou  hast  set  our  secret 
sins  in  the  light  of  thy  countenance." 


THE  NINETIETH  PSALM  83 

Third  Day:  JJraper  for  Eegtoration  (Sergefi  047) 

1.  The  Psalmist  has  not  yet  exhausted  his  contemplation  of  the 
pathos  of  life.  There  is  a  pensive  sadness  about  the  familiar  words, 
"We  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is  told";  but  the  more  correct 
translation  of  the  American  Revised  Version  is  much  more  touching 
and  impressive,  "We  bring  our  years  to  an  end  as  a  sigh,"  as  a 
murmur — brief  and  sad.  This  simple  word  summarizes  the  thought 
of  the  psalm  thus  far. 

2.  The  Psalmist  looks  closely  at  an  actual  life.  Take  a  long  life, 
for  comparison ;  but  ah !  no  life  is  long  when  measured  against  the 
uncounted  years  of  him  to  whom  a  millennium  is  but  as  a  day. 
Seventy  years,  eighty  at  most — what  is  that  against  God's  eternity? 
"For  swiftly  it  passes,  and  like  a  bird  we  fly  away."  And  what 
do  those  brief  years  bring?  what  but  toil  and  trouble?  A  sad  enough 
reading  of  the  facts  of  life. 

3.  These  facts,  however,  are  surely  fitted  to  teach  us  something, 
and  the  wise  will  learn  therefrom.  But  there  are  so  few  that 
possess  this  wisdom — "few  there  be  that  find  it."  Therefore  the 
Psalmist,  realizing  that  the  great  tragedy  of  life  is  to  interpret  it 
wrongly,  if  it  be  not  indeed  a  greater  not  to  interpret  it  at  all, 
prays  that  God  may  himself  bring  this  lesson  home  to  the  sluggish 
hearts  of  men.  Who  lays  to  heart  the  power  of  thine  anger?  who 
realizes  that  life  is  sad  because  sin  has  brought  upon  it  the  chastising 
hand  of  God?  Who  but  the  man  that  has  been  taught  by  God  him- 
self? Hence  the  prayer,  "To  number  our  days  so  teach  us  that 
we  may  reap  the  harvest  of  a  wise  and  understanding  heart"-— or 
some  render,  "that  we  may  enter  through  the  portals  of  wisdom." 
The  brevity  and  sorrow  of  life  are  fitted  to  teach  wisdom  to  those 
who  will  humbly  consent  to  be  taught. 

4.  The  prayer  that  follows  shows  that  Israel's  plight  is  sad 
indeed.  For  many  years  she  had  been  afflicted.  Her  God  seemed 
to  have  gone  away  from  her.  She  was  attempting  some  high  and 
needful  task,  but  her  efforts  were  defeated  evermore.  And  what 
she  needs  is  that  her  God  should  take  pity  upon  her,  come  back  to 
her,  interpose  for  her,  give  her  joy  for  sorrow,  and  crown  with 
success  the  work  she  was  seeking  to  do. 

5.  Therefore  she  prays,  "Come  back,  O  Jehovah.  Be  sorry  for 
thy  servants.  Oh,  satisfy  us  in  the  morning  with  thy  love."  After 
the  long  night  of  affliction,  there  come  with  the  morning  thoughts 
of  hope  and  restoration.  If  only  Jehovah  will  "work,"  do  some 
manifest  thing  for  them,  interpose  in  some  "glorious"  way  in  their 
history,  then  all  will  be  well;  and  they  can  prosecute  their  own 
work  with  success  and  joy.    It  is  not  certain  what  that  work  is 


84  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

which  they  pray  shall  be  established — possibly  the  common  work 
of  every  day;  but  more  probably  the  great  national  work  of  Israel, 
which,  at  the  time  this  psalm  was  written,  was  the  organizing  of 
the  church,  her  worship,  and  her  life. 


THE  NINETIETH  PSALM  85 

Fourth  Day  :  C|)e  ^Hefifiaffe  d£  tl)e  pjialm  for  ©Is 

_.  This  is  the  Hebrew  Hymn  of  Eternity.  As  its  earlier  notes  are 
struck,  infinite  ages  unroll  before  us,  and  fill  with  a  presence — the 
presence  of  him  who  sits  on  his  eternal  throne,  of  him  who  was 
before  the  great  mountains,  and  who  will  be  when  they  are  no 
more. 

2.  And  in  that  presence,  how  strangely  sad  is  human  life !  To 
express  its  infinite  pathos,  the  Psalmist  exhausts  all  the  riches  of 
his  art.  He  is  vexed  at  the  thought  of  its  unutterable  frailty.  The 
days  are  so  few — seventy  or  eighty  years  at  most — and  they  are  full 
of  toil  and  trouble ;  and  despite  it  all,  men  have  to  go  down  to  their 
graves  with  their  work  unestablished.  Life  has  its  morning,  bright 
and  fair;  but  it  hastens  into  the  evening,  where  it  withers  and  is 
lost.  It  is  ruthlessly  swept  away  by  the  uncontrollable  floods  of 
time.  It  is  like  a  sleep.  It  is  like  a  meadow-flower,  bright  in  the 
morning,  withered  in  the  evening.  It  is  like  a  bird  which  flies 
away,  and  is  seen  no  more.  It  is  like  a  sigh,  brief  and  lost  forever, 
wrung  from  a  heavily  laden  heart.  And  the  generations  pass  like 
the  individual  men;  they  have  their  day,  their  brief,  sad  day,  and 
go  back  to  the  dust.  Morning  and  evening,  flourishing  and  fading 
— all  things  pass  but  the  everlasting  God. 

3.  Thus  these  two  thoughts  are  most  intimately  connected  in  the 
Psalmist's  mind — the  frailty  of  man  and  the  eternity  of  God.  The 
great  poets  have  sung  to  us  times  without  number  of  the  sadness  of 
life;  but  we  do  not  need  a  great  poet  to  tell  us  life  is  sad.  Anyone 
who  has  looked  at  all  beneath  the  surface,  anyone  who  has  watched 
a  friend  pass  through  the  gates  of  death,  or  who  has  himself  drawn 
near  those  gates  with  his  work  unaccomplished,  any  serious  man, 
and  many  who  are  not  serious,  can  tell  us  that.  But  our  hearts  are 
empty  and  unsatisfied,  if  we  are  told  no  more.  It  is  the  glory  of  the 
Bible  that  it  evermore  reminds  us  that,  though  all  men  and  all 
things  are  passing,  there  is  One  who  is  eternal.  On  that  great 
thought  we  can  steady  our  hearts,  when  they  are  confused  and  dis- 
tressed by  the  contemplation  of  life's  endless  change. 

4.  It  is  good  "to  number  our  days" — that  is  the  moral  which  the 
poet  puts  into  the  heart  of  his  tender  song— good  to  consider  their 
brevity  and  their  meaning;  but  good,  in  the  deepest  sense,  only  to 
one  who  believes  that  behind  their  discipline  is  the  hand  of  the 
eternal  God  (verse  11). 

5.  Watch  how  the  Psalmist  refuses  to  content  himself  with  the 
thought  of  the  majesty,  the  infinity,  the  eternity  of  God.  That  is 
indeed  a  sobering  thought;  but  towards  the  end  of  his  prayer,  he 
turns  to  other  and  tenderer  thoughts.     He  calls  him  Jehovah.     He 


86  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

asks  him  to  take  pity  and  to  make  his  people  glad.  He  speaks  of 
his  love  and  his  favor.  He  asks  him  to  act  for  them,  and  graciously 
to  give  their  history  a  new  turn.  Clearly  he  is  no  unbending  God 
of  the  endless  ages,  but  a  Person  with  a  heart  of  love,  whose 
gracious  interposition  will  give  strength  and  stability  to  the  efforts 
of  feeble  human  hands. 

6.  Nay,  so  dear  is  this  thought  to  the  Psalmist  that  he  expresses 
it,  almost  in  spite  of  himself,  in  the  opening  verses.  He  comes 
into  God's  presence  prostrate  before  that  awful  majesty,  as  he  thinks 
of  him  as  lord  of  all  the  ages,  creator  of  the  strong  mountains, 
arbiter  of  all  the  generations  of  men.  But  almost  involuntarily  he 
begins  with  the  words,  "Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling-place  in 
all  generations."  He  is  not,  then,  an  impersonal  force,  he  is  the 
everlasting  home  of  his  people.  The  man  who  can  thus  address 
God  in  the  beginning  of  his  prayer  has  already  answered  his  doubts 
by  anticipation;  he  possesses  a  consolation,  deep  and  unshaken, 
amid  the  changes  and  impermanence  of  this  earthly  life  of  ours. 

7.  Since  1662  this  psalm  has  had  its  place  in  the  burial  service 
of  the  Prayer-book.  In  its  original  intention  it  was  clearly  a  prayer 
for  living  men,  that  they  might  be  delivered  from  affliction,  and 
that  the  work  which  their  hands  had  been  unsuccessfully  striving 
to  do  should  be  crowned  with  the  divine  favor.  Yet  there  is  also  a 
fine  propriety  about  its  use  at  the  burial  of  the  dead — not  only 
because  it  reminds  the  living,  with  such  tenderness  and  power,  of 
the  transience  of  all  things  human,  but  even  more  because  it  opens 
vistas  into  that  eternal  world  which  knows  no  defeat  and  no  decay, 
where  all  the  faithful  work  of  the  hands  of  the  dead,  and  of  the 
living  who  are  yet  to  die,  will  be  established. 


THE  NINETIETH  PSALM  87 

Fifth  Day:  JJarapliraee  of  tl)e  JJealm 

O  Lord!  thou  hast  been  our  eternal  home.  Ere  mountains  or 
earth  were  brought  forth,  thou  wert,  O  God,  and  thou  dost  con- 
tinue from  everlasting  to  everlasting.  At  thy  bidding  the  frail 
generations  of  men  return  to  the  dust.  Ages  are  in  thy  sight  but  as 
a  day  when  it  is  done — brief  as  a  watch  in  the  night.  The  genera- 
tions of  men  are  ever  changing.  They  blossom  in  the  morning  like 
the  meadow-flower,  to  wither  and  perish  in  the  evening. 

The  sorrow  of  our  life  is  due  to  our  sin.  For  this  fierce  anger  of 
thine,  which  confounds  and  destroys  us,  has  been  kindled  by  our 
transgressions,  which,  though  we  ourselves  may  know  them  not, 
are  yet  plain  in  thy  sight.  For  under  thy  sore  anger  all  our  days 
have  vanished  away.  When  our  years  are  over,  they  are  but  as  a 
murmur.  Though  they  mount  to  seventy  or  eighty,  yet  is  their 
glory  but  toil  and  emptiness;  for  it  hastens  away,  and  like  a  bird 
we  are  gone. 

O  how  few  there  be  that  lay  to  heart  the  meaning  of  thy  fierce 
anger!  Teach  us  to  understand  this,  and  to  number  our  days  in 
the  light  of  this  knowledge,  that  our  hearts  may  reap  a  harvest  of 
wisdom.  O  our  God!  come  back  to  us.  How  long  wilt  thou  tarry? 
Have  pity  upon  us,  thy  servants.  After  the  long  night  of  sorrow, 
let  thy  mercy  dawn  upon  us,  and  be  with  us  all  our  days,  filling  our 
hearts  with  joy  and  gladness,  as  deep  as  is  the  sorrow  that  has 
been  ours  in  the  years  gone  by.  Interpose  for  thy  servants'  sake, 
and  manifest  thyself  in  some  glorious  deed.  Set  thy  favor  upon 
us,  O  our  God,  and  establish  the  work  we  are  striving  to  do. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


88  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  JJointe  for  CongiUcration 

1.  "The  curtain  of  life  was  for  a  moment  drawn  aside,  the  hang- 
ings that  wrap  us  round,  and  we  looked  for  an  instant  into  the  vast 
and  starlit  silences,  the  formless,  ancient  dark,  where  a  thousand 
years  are  but  as  yesterday,  and  into  which  the  countless  generations 
of  men  have  marched,  one  after  another.  That  is  a  solemn,  but 
hardly  a  despairing  thought;  for  something  is  being  wrought  out 
in  the  silence,  something  of  which  we  may  not  be  conscious,  but 
which  is  surely  there.  Could  we  but  lay  that  cool  and  mighty 
thought  closer  to  our  spirits  !  That  impenetrable  mystery  ought  to 
give  us  courage,  to  let  us  rest,  as  it  were,  within  a  mighty  arm." — 
A.  C.  Benson,  The  Upton  Letters,  pp.  239  f. 

2.  "Whether  at  Naishapur  or  Babylon, 

Whether  the  Cup  with  sweet  or  bitter  run. 

The  Wine  of  Life  keeps  oozing  drop  by  drop. 
The  Leaves  of  Life  keep  falling  one  by  one. 

"There  was  the  Door  to  which  I  found  no  Key ; 
There  was  the  Veil  through  which  I  might  not  see ; 

Some  little  talk  awhile  of  me  and  thee 
There  was — and  then  no  more  of  thee  and  me.'' 

— Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam. 

How  does  the  general  spirit  of  the  Rubaiyat  differ  from  that  of 
the  psalm? 

3.  "I  have  ever  been  deemed  one  of  Fortune's  special  favorites; 
nor  will  I  complain  of  the  course  my  life  has  taken.  Yet  at  bottom 
there  has  been  nothing  but  work  and  toil ;  and  I  may  well  say  that 
in  my  seventy-five  years  I  have  never  had  four  weeks  of  real 
pleasure." — (Goethe,  Conversations  with  Eckermann,  27  Jan'y,  1824.) 

4.  'T  wish  to  tell  you  of  a  thing  which  brought  me  no  little  con- 
solation, in  the  hope  that  it  may  perhaps  be  able  to  soften  your  grief, 
too.  On  my  way  back  from  Asia,  as  I  was  sailing  towards  Megara 
from  JEgina.,  I  began  to  look  at  the  places  round  about.  Behind 
me  was  ^gina,  in  front  of  me  Megara,  on  my  right  the  Piraeus,  on 
my  left  Corinth — cities  which  once  were  most  flourishing,  but  are 
now  lying  in  ruins  before  the  eyes.  This  is  how  I  began  to  turn 
it  over  in  my  mind.  *Ah,'  thought  I,  'shall  we  puny  mortals  be 
angry  if  one  of  us  perishes  or  is  slain,  when  so  many  cities  are 
lying  in  ruins  and  death?  Restrain  yourself,  Servius,  and  remember 
that  you  were  born  mortal.'    Believe  me,  I  was  not  a  little  strength- 


THE  NINETIETH  PSALM  89 

ened  by  this  thought." — From  a  letter  addressed  by  Servius  Sul- 
picius  to  Cicero  on  the  death  of  his  daughter  Tullia. 

5.  R.  G.  Moulton  calls  this  psalm  a  Hymn  of  Mountain  Sunrise. 
"While  its  subject  is  'Life  as  a  passing  Day,'  the  setting  of  the 
thought  is  the  concealed  imagery  of  a  mountain  sunrise." — {The 
Literary  Study  of  the  Bible,  pp.  175-177.)     Consider  this. 

6.  "Change  and  decay  in  all  around  I  see : 

O  thou  who  changest  not,  abide  with  me." — H.  F.  Lyte. 

7.  "Nothing  less  than  the  sublime  thought  of  God,  transcendent 
yet  immanent,  can  satisfy  and  hold  us,  can  steady  and  guide  us,  as 
we  think  of  our  little,  personal  lives  in  the  far-reaching  stream  of 
history." — W.  C.  Selleck,  The  New  Appreciation  of  the  Bible,  p.  241. 


90  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Seventh  Day:  CittefitiottS 

1.  Do  you  ever  look  at  j'our  life  in  the  light  of  eternity? 

2.  Have  you  ever  allowed  yourself  to  be  impressed  by  the  in- 
exorable passing  of  the  generations  of  men? 

3.  Have  you  ever  solemnly  considered  how  small  a  place  is  yours 
in  the  universe  and  in  human  history,  and  how  certainly  and  utterly 
you  shall  vanish  from  the  memory  of  men? 

4.  Do  thoughts  like  these  sadden  you?  Is  this  their  only  effect? 
What  difference  does  the  belief  in  God  make  ? 

5.  Is  human  life  necessarily  and  inevitably  as  pathetic  as  it  is 
portrayed  in  this  psalm  (cf.  verse  10)  ?  Is  the  view  of  the  psalm 
a  Christian  view?  What  is  your  own  view  of  human  life,  based 
upon  your  observation  and  experience? 

6.  Does  such  a  thought  as  the  eternity  of  God  find  powerful  ex- 
pression in  the  New  Testament?  Are  there  any  important  elements 
in  religion  more  strongly  emphasized  in  the  Old  Testament  than  in 
the  New? 

7.  In  what  sense  may  the  sorrow  and  brevity  of  life  be  connected 
with  sin? 

8.  What  view  of  God  underlies  the  psalm? 

9.  Does  the  psalm  seem  to  have  a  special  message  for  you,  when 
read  at  the  burial  of  the  dead?  If  so,  what  is  that  message?  Do 
you  really  lay  it  to  heart  ? 


STUDY  IX 


THE   NINETY-FIRST  PSALM  93 

First  Day  :  Cl)e  QLm  of  tbc  {Jfialm 

Happy  he  who  dwells  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High, 

And  lodges  in  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty, 
Who  says  to  Jehovah:  "My  refuge  and  my  fortress  (art  thou), 

My  God,  in  whom  I  trust !" 

For  HE  will  deliver  thee  from  the  fowler's  snare. 

From  the  pit  of  destruction. 
With  his  pinions  he  will  cover  thee, 

And  under  his  wings  thou  mayest  hide. 

Thou  needest  not  fear  the  terror  of  the  night, 

Nor  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day, 
Nor  the  plague  that  stalks  in  the  dark. 

Nor  the  pest  or  the  demon  of  noon. 

Though  a  thousand  fall  at  thy  side, 

And  ten  thousand  at  thy  right  hand. 
Yet  it  shall  not  draw  nigh  unto  thee, 

For  his  faithfulness  is  a  shield  and  a  buckler. 

Only  with  thine  eyes  shalt  thou  look  on. 

And  see  how  the  wicked  are  punished. 
For  THY  refuge  is  Jehovah, 

The  Most  High  thou  hast  made  thy  home. 

Thou  shalt  not  be  met  by  misfortune, 

No  plague  shall  come  near  thy  tent : 
For  he  will  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee. 

To  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways. 

On  their  hands  they  will  bear  thee  up. 

Lest  thou  strike  thy  foot  on  a  stone, 
On  serpents  and  adders  shalt  thou  tread. 

And  trample  on  lions  and  dragons. 

"Because"  (saith  Jehovah)  "he  has  clung  to  me,  I  will  deliver  him; 

I  will  set  him  (secure)  on  high,  because  he  knows  my  name. 
When  he  calls  upon  me,  I  will  answer  him. 

In  trouble  I  will  be  with  him. 
I  will  rescue  him,  and  bring  him  to  honor: 

With  length  of  days  will  I  satisfy  him. 

And  show  him  my  salvation." 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate  upon  it  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books,  until 
you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


94  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day:   d)e  ^ccuritp  of  X^t  iFait|)ftil  (Sersefi  \  S) 

1.  Optimism  surely  never  took  more  radiant  or  exuberant  expres- 
sion than  it  takes  in  this  psalm.  It  must  have  come  from  a  happy 
heart;  apparently,  too,  from  a  triumphant  life.  The  sudden  change 
of  its  personal  pronouns  makes  the  psalm,  on  a  first  study,  seem 
obscure  and  abrupt;  but  the  difficulty  disappears,  when  it  is  recog- 
nized that  the  body  of  the  poem  (verses  3-13)  is  addressed  by  the 
poet  to  the  man  who  trusts  his  God,  in  much  the  same  style  and 
spirit  as  the  book  of  Proverbs  occasionally  addresses  its  admoni- 
tions and  promises  to  "my  son"  (cf.  Proverbs  5:1;  6:1;  7:1). 
The  first  two  verses  simply  announce  the  general  theme — the  blessed- 
ness of  the  faithful — expressed  in  terms  of  the  third  person  (for  "/ 
will  say"  in  verse  2,  we  should  probably  read  ''he  will  say"). 
In  the  last  three  verses,  Jehovah  himself  is  represented  as  inter- 
vening and  confirming  the  previous  promises  by  a  divine  oracle.  In 
the  liturgical  service,  the  last  verses  may  have  been  spoken  by  a 
priest. 

2.  The  language  of  the  earlier  verses  is  an  echo  of  the  times  when 
the  peasant  lived  in  continual  fear  of  an  assault  by  robber  bands, 
from  which  he  had  to  take  refuge  by  hiding  in  caves  of  the  moun- 
tains. Jehovah  is  as  real  a  defence  to  the  Psalmist  as  ever  cave 
or  fortress  had  been  to  a  hunted  man.  Nay,  the  thought  is  even 
friendlier  and  warmer  than  that.  The  second  clause  of  verse  i 
calls  up  the  image  of  home  and  hospitable  shelter:  "he  spends  the 
night,  as  it  were,  beneath  the  shade  of  Jehovah's  roof*  (cf.  Gen. 
19:8). 

3.  Through  the  promises  that  follow,  directly  addressed  to  the  man 
who  trusts  his  God,  we  get  a  glimpse  of  a  world  thick-set  with 
dangers  of  every  kind;  but  through  that  world  the  man  may  walk 
with  the  assurance  that  his  feet  will  be  kept.  His  life  may  be 
craftily  sought,  like  the  life  of  a  bird  (cf.  Ps.  11:  i)  by  the  fowler, 
but  it  is  watched  over  by  One  who  is  mightier  than  any  fowler. 
Note  that,  in  accordance  with  very  ancient  conceptions,  Jehovah  is 
himself  pictorially  represented  as  having  wings  (cf.  the  connection 
of  cherubs  with  the  ark),  beneath  which  the  man  who  trusts  him 
is  safe. 

4.  Not  only  is  he  safe,  but  delivered  from  all  fear.  Night  and 
day,  his  heart  may  be  at  rest;  however  keen  the  arrow  that  flietb 
by  day,  however  stealthy  and  awful  the  terrors  that  haunt  the  night, 
they  cannot  touch  him.  Verses  5  and  6  were  no  doubt  more  viviO 
to  an  ancient  reader  than  they  arc  to  us.  The  arrow  is  probably 
not  that  shot  in  battle,  but  rather  the  burning  dart  shot  by  the  sun 
(Ps.  121:6) — sunstroke;  and  similarly,  the  terror  of  the  night  may 


THE   NINETY-FIRST  PSALM  95 

be  that  curious  influence  which  was  supposed  to  stream  from  the 
moon  and  produce  lunacy. 

5.  But  there  were  more  terrible  things  than  these  in  the  shape  of 
pestilence,  fever,  and  contagious  disease — those  mysterious  forces 
which  stalked  about,  and  smote  the  ancient  heart  with  the  super- 
stitious feeling  that  they  were  the  operation  of  demons.  This  was 
probably  the  original  idea  in  verse  6;  and  the  Greek  version 
translates  the  last  clause  to  mean,  **the  demon  of  midday."  Still 
more  weird  to  the  imagination  would  be  those  spirits  that  did  their 
deadly  work  by  night.  It  was  at  night  that  the  first-born  of  Egypt 
were  smitten  (Exodus  12:29),  and  Sennacherib's  Assyrian  host 
(Isaiah  37:36).  But  when  the  awful  power  of  pestilence  (or  war) 
sweeps  men  away  by  the  thousand  or  the  ten  thousand,  the  faithful 
will  be  untouched,  as  Israel  was  untouched  by  the  destroying  angel 
when  he  passed  in  the  dead  of  the  night  through  the  land  of  Egypt 
(Exodus  12:23).  Only  the  wicked  would  be  struck  down.  The 
man  of  faith  would  not  share  their  doom,  however  near  he  was  to 
the  victims,  but  he  would  see  it,  and  find  in  it  a  confirmation  of  his 
faith  in  the  divine  government  of  the  world.  The  words  of  verse  8 
more  than  half  reveal  a  certain  satisfaction  at  the  contemplation  of 
the  doom  of  the  wicked;  it  is  almost  the  only  verse  in  this  noble 
psalm  which  a  Christian  cannot  gladly  appropriate  (cf.,  however, 
verse  7,  and  first  clause  of  verse  i6). 


96  TEN  STUDIES  IN   THE  PSALMS 

Third  Day:  Cl)e  STriumpI)  of  t|)e  JFaitI)fttI  (Serges  946) 

1.  The  man  who  trusts  is  safe ;  he  is  also  fearless ;  and  the  reason 
is,  in  verse  9  as  in  verse  i,  because  he  has  made  God  his  refuge  and 
his  home.  If  the  present  text  of  verse  9  be  correct,  we  must  sup- 
pose that  the  first  clause  is  an  interruption  on  the  part  of  the  man 
who  is  the  subject  of  these  precious  promises.  "For  thou"— he 
breaks  in— ''art  my  refuge."  This  is  perhaps  a  little  unnatural. 
The  margin  preserves  the  continuity  of  the  passage,  by  suggesting 
an  additional  word,  "Because  thou  hast  said,  'Jehovah  is  my 
refuge.'  "  It  is  simplest  of  all  to  read,  as  in  the  second  clause,  "As 
for  thee,  Jehovah  is  thy  refuge,"  which  is  a  happy  parallel  to  "thy 
habitation." 

2.  No  stroke  of  calamity  will  fall  upon  the  good  man's  tent — a 
word  whose  background  is  nomadic  life — because  God  had  given 
his  angels  charge  over  him.  The  divine  faithfulness,  which  in  verse 
7  was  a  shield  and  buckler,  is  now  personified  and  takes  the  form 
of  angels — peculiarly  striking  in  this  context ;  these  guardian  angels 
are  the  counterpart  of  the  demons  who  carry  on  their  deadly  work 
at  noonday  and  at  midnight.  The  world  is  a  battlefield  upon  which 
invisible  forces  contend  for  the  good  man's  hfe. 

3.  But  the  angels  have  charge,  and  they  will  lift  him  over  the 
rough  places  of  the  way.  Oriental  roads  were  often  poor  and 
stony,  and  the  feet  protected  only  by  sandals;  hence  the  comfort 
of  the  thought  that  on  life's  uneven  way  the  pilgrim  would  be  saved 
by  unseen  angelic  powers  from  stumbling  and  wounding  his  weary- 
feet.  And  that  way  was  beset  by  dangers  worse  than  stones: 
there  were  reptiles  and  wild  beasts  upon  it — symbols  of  malicious 
and  powerful  opposition.  From  these,  too,  the  good  man  will  be 
safe,  because  he  enjoys  angelic  protection.  Nay,  not  only  is  he  safe 
from  them,  but  triumphant  over  them;  not  only  will  they  not  hurt 
him,  but  he  will  be  able  to  hurt  and  destroy  them.  He  will  tread 
unharmed  over  the  serpents  and  adders,  while  mighty  lions  and 
dragons  he  will  trample  victoriously  under  foot.  His  life  will  be  at 
once  secure,  fearless,  and  triumphant. 

4.  The  psalm  appropriately  closes  in  solemn  oracular  words  ut- 
tered by  Jehovah  himself,  who  confirms  the  previous  promises  and 
sets  them  in  a  larger  light.  Because  his  servant  clung  to  him  in 
love,  Jehovah  promises  to  hear  his  prayer  and  be  with  him  in  dis- 
tress, to  set  him  on  high,  secure  and  out  of  the  reach  of  his  enemies, 
to  grant  him  long  life  in  this  world — an  object  of  ceaseless  aspira- 
tion for  men  who  had  no  sure  hope  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave — 
and  finally  to  crown  all  his  kindness  to  him,  by  allowing  him  to 
look  upon  and  participate  in  the  great  Messianic  salvation.     And  all 


( 


THE   NINETY-FIRST   PSALM  97 

this,  because  he  knows  Jehovah's  name,  that  is,  he  knows  his  char- 
acter— what  to  call  him,  how  to  invoke  him,  what  attitude  to  main- 
tain towards  him — he  understands  the  nature  of  the  religion  which 
he  professes,  clings  in  simple  faith  and  love  to  the  God  who  is  his 
refuge  against  the  demons,  the  adders,  the  lions,  the  dragons,  the 
men  who  threaten  his  life.  Such  is  the  man  whom  Jehovah  ap- 
proves, delivers,  honors,  and  saves. 


98  TEN  STUDIES  IN   THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  Cbe  ^efifiap  of  tl)e  JJfialm  for  ^6 

1.  The  faith  of  this  psalm  is  daring  beyond  all  others — so  daring 
that  at  first  one  is  tempted  to  wonder  whether  the  Psalmist  fully 
realizes  the  fearful  odds  against  which  faith  has  always  to  measure 
itself.  But  he  knew  life  as  well  as  God ;  the  world  to  which  he  bid 
defiance  was  a  world  whose  perils  he  understood  through  and 
through.  It  was  peopled  by  powerful  demons,  who  haunted  every 
hour  of  the  day  and  night,  by  mysterious  forces  that  smote  men 
down  by  the  thousand  and  ten  thousand,  by  fowlers  who  were 
setting  snares  for  innocent  lives.  Upon  its  roads  were  stones  over 
which  the  weary  pilgrim  feet  might  stumble;  in  its  secret  places 
lurked  serpents  and  wild  beasts.  Yes ;  if  faith  here  wins  a  splendid 
victory,  it  wins  it  after  looking  with  frank  and  careful  eyes  at  the 
subtle  and  powerful  forces  that  are  everlastingly  arrayed  against  it. 

2.  It  is  altogether  probable  that  Jesus  nourished  his  own  faith 
upon  the  brave  and  bracing  words  of  this  psalm.  It  was  a  sublime 
illustration  of  the  faith,  so  dear  to  him,  which  could  overcome  the 
world.  Words  borrowed  from  this  psalm  were  thrust  upon  his 
mind  in  the  great  temptation  (Matthew  4:6;  Luke  4*  io>  ii)»  and, 
when  his  disciples  returned  to  him  rejoicing  that  the  demons  were 
subject  to  them,  he  assured  them,  in  words  suggested  by  this  psalm, 
"Behold,  I  have  given  you  authority  to  tread  upon  serpents  and 
scorpions,  and  over  all  the  power  of  the  enemy;  and  nothing  shall 
in  anywise  hurt  you"  (Luke  10:  19).  We  cannot  wonder  that  the 
psalm  should  have  been  a  favorite  of  Jesus. 

3.  First  is  its  sense  of  security.  The  man  who  has  God  for  his 
refuge  and  home  feels  safe.  The  fowler  may  lay  his  snare,  but  the 
life  for  which  it  is  laid  is  beyond  his  reach.  Demons  may  lurk  in 
the  way;  but  "he  giveth  his  angels  charge  over  thee."  Unseen 
gracious  forces  are  watching  over  the  life;  and  nothing  can  essen- 
tially harm  the  soul  that  is  hid  in  God. 

4.  But  besides  this  sense  of  safety,  there  is  quietness  and  confi- 
dence. "Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid."  Unquestionably,  fear  is  one  of 
our  deadliest  enemies;  it  both  destroys  our  peace  and  cripples  our 
power  of  resisting  the  blows  which  may  fall.  And  just  as  unquestion- 
ably is  fear  the  result  of  faithlessness.  "God  is  our  refuge  and 
strength,  therefore  we  will  not  fear"  (Ps.  46:  i).  "In  (^d  have  I 
put  my  trust;  I  will  not  be  afraid"  (Ps.  56:4)-  This  is  one  of 
the  great  lessons  of  the  Bible,  verified  countless  times  in  experience, 
that  faith  in  God  drives  out  fear— fear  of  calamity,  of  the  future, 
of  man.  "What  can  flesh  do  unto  me?"  (Ps.  56:4).  Nay,  the 
Psalmist  did  not  even  fear  the  demons. 

5.  Lastly,  faith  in  God  makes  life  not  only  quiet,  but  triumphant. 


THE   NINETY-FIRST  PSALM  99 

Opposition  may  be  subtle  as  the  serpent  or  powerful  as  the  dragon, 
but  over  it  all  faith  rises  victorious.  The  triumph  may  not  always 
be  obvious  to  the  world,  but  it  is  real  to  the  man  of  faith,  and  not 
seldom  also  such  as  the  world  is  compelled  to  acknowledge.  "These 
signs  shall  accompany  them  that  believe ;  in  my  name  shall  they  cast 
out  demons;  they  shall  take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any 
deadly  thing,  it  shall  in  nowise  hurt  them;  they  shall  lay  hands 
on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover"  (Mark  16:17,  18).  These 
words  breathe  the  same  consciousness  of  immunity  and  triumph  as 
the  psalm. 

6.  The  faith  of  the  psalm  is  as  simple  as  it  is  sublime.  It  is  not 
an  intellectual  belief,  but  a  passionate  personal  relationship;  it  is 
an  attitude  of  daring  but  reasonable  trust  in  the  most  high  God. 
It  is  the  complete  and  joyful  surrender  of  the  individual  soul  to  one 
whom  it  can  call  "My  refuge  and  my  fortress;  my  God,  in  whom  I 
trust." 


100  TEN  STUDIES.  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fifth  Day  :    Parap()rafi;e  of  t^e  J)0alm 

Happy  is  the  man  who  knows  the  Almighty  and  the  most  high 
God  to  be  his  shelter  and  his  home,  and  who  can  say  to  him  with 
grateful  confidence:  "Thou  art  my  refuge,  my  fortress,  my  God 
in  whom  I  trust." 

For  he  is  mighty  to  deliver  from  perils  of  every  kind.  He  can 
save  thee  from  snare  and  deadly  pestilence ;  his  sheltering  wings  can 
safely  cover  thee.  Thou  needest  not  fear  the  terror  of  night,  nor 
the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day,  nor  the  plague  that  stalks  in  the  dark, 
nor  the  feverish  heat  of  noonday.  Ten  thousand  of  the  godless 
may  fall  about  thee,  but  the  evil  shall  never  touch  thee;  for 
Jehovah's  faithfulness  is  to  thee  as  a  shield  of  defence.  Thou  shalt 
see  with  thine  eyes  how  the  godless  are  punished;  but  that  is  all. 
For  thou  thyself  art  safe;  thou  hast  made  the  most  high  God  thy 
refuge  and  thy  home.  No  evil  shall  befall  thee;  no  plague  shall 
come  near  thy  home;  for  at  his  bidding  the  angels  preserve  thee 
wherever  thou  goest,  bearing  thee  up  and  keeping  thee  from 
stumbling  on  the  stony  ways.  Over  all  that  is  strong  and  cruel  and 
treacherous  thou  shalt  have  the  dominion.  Reptiles  and  adders, 
lions  and  dragons,  shalt  thou  trample  under  foot. 

"All  this,"  saith  Jehovah,  'T  will  do  for  the  man  who  loves  me 
and  cares  for  me.  I  will  deliver  and  exalt  him.  When,  in  his  hour 
of  need,  he  calls  me,  I  will  answer  and  stand  by  him.  I  will  save 
him  and  bring  him  to  honor,  and  spare  him  long  to  see  the  golden 
Messianic  days." 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


THE  NINETY-FIRST  PSALM  loi 

Sixth  Day  :  {Joints  for  ConfiiDeration 

1.  "Taste  for  the  culture  of  the  Renaissance,  passion  for  poetry, 
worldly  success  and  fame,  had  weakened  the  impression  of  the 
religious  training  of  Beza's  youth.  A  dangerous  illness  revived  his 
former  feelings.  Escaping  from  the  bondage  of  Egypt,  as  he  called 
his  previous  life,  he  took  refuge  with  Calvin  at  Geneva.  In  1548, 
when  he,  for  the  first  time,  attended  the  service  of  the  Reformed 
Assembly,  the  congregation  was  singing  Psalm  91,  'Whoso  dwelleth 
under  the  defence  of  the  Most  High,  shall  abide  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Almighty.'  He  never  forgot  the  effect  of  the  words.  They 
supported  him  in  all  the  ditficulties  of  his  subsequent  life;  they 
conquered  his  fears,  and  gave  him  courage  to  meet  every  danger." — 
{Prothero,  The  Psalms  in  Human  Life,  pp.  185  f.) 

2.  "Luther  sat  translating  one  of  the  Psalms ;  he  was  worn-down 
with  long  labour,  with  sickness,  abstinence  from  food;  there  rose 
before  him  some  hideous,  indefinable  Image,  which  he  took  for  the 
Evil  One,  to  forbid  his  work ;  Luther  started  up,  with  fiend-defiance ; 
flung  his  ink-stand  at  the  spectre,  and  it  disappeared !  The  spot 
still  remains  there;  a  curious  monument  of  several  things.  Any 
apothecary's  apprentice  can  now  tell  us  what  we  are  to  think  of 
this  apparition,  in  a  scientific  sense ;  but  the  man's  heart  that  dare 
rise  defiant,  face  to  face,  against  Hell  itself,  can  give  no  higher 
proof  of  fearlessness.  The  thing  he  will  quail  before,  exists  not  on 
this  Earth  or  under  it." — {Carlyle,  Heroes,  Lecture  IV.) 

3.  The  last  verse  of  the  psalm  might  be  illustrated,  in  a  sense 
deeper  than  the  Psalmist  dreamt  of,  by  the  experience  of  Simeon 
and  Anna  (Luke  2:25-38).  Simeon  took  the  child  Jesus  in  his 
arms,  and  said : 

"Now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart,  O  Lord, 
According  to  thy  word,  in  peace ; 
For  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 

4.  The  great  lesson  of  the  psalm  is  that  God  is  mindful  of  his 
own ;  but  we  have  been  taught  by  Jesus  that  the  application  of  this 
truth  must  not  be  external  or  mechanical.  Among  those  who  come 
scathless  through  danger  may  be  the  bad;  and  among  the  thousand 
who  fall  at  thy  side  may  be  the  good.  "Do  you  imagine,"  said 
Jesus,  "that  those  eighteen,  who  were  killed  by  the  fall  of  the  tower 
in  Siloam,  were  offenders  above  all  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem? 
I  tell  you,  nay."     (Luke  13:  4,  5.) 

5.  "I  felt  that  it  mattered  nothing  to  God  what  I  knew,  what  I  be- 
lieved, what  abstract  propositions  I  had  mastered,  what  my  place, 


102  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

my  influence,  might  be;  all  that  mattered  was  that  I  should  turn 
to  him  at  every  moment  with  perfect  confidence  and  trust." — {The 
Gate  of  Death,  pp.  44  f.) 

6.  "In  almost  all  these  engagements  [in  China]  Colonel  Gordon 
was  very  much  exposed,  for  he  found  it  necessary,  or  at  least 
expedient,  to  be  constantly  in  the  front,  and  often  to  lead  in  person. 
*  *  *  He  seemed  to  bear  a  charmed  life,  and  never  carried  any 
arms,  even  when  foremost  in  the  breach.  His  only  weapon  on 
these  occasions  was  a  small  cane,  with  which  he  used  to  direct  his 
troops." — (Andrew  Wilson,  Colonel  Gordon's  Chinese  Campaign.) 

Yet  Gordon  knew  well  that  the  life  of  the  good  man  is  not  always 
an  outward  and  visible  triumph.  On  the  nth  March,  1884,  he  writes 
thus  to  his  sister : 

"Remember,  our  Lord  did  not  promise  success  or  peace  in  this 
life.  He  promised  tribulation,  so  if  things  do  not  go  well  after  the 
flesh,  he  still  is  faithful.  He  will  do  all  in  love  and  mercy  to  me. 
My  part  is  to  submit  to  his  will,  however  dark  it  may  be." 

His  brilliant  and  faithful  career  was  crowned  by  a  violent  death 
in  a  captured  city,  which  for  months  he  had  defended  heroically, 
but  in  vain.  His  life  strikingly  illustrates  alike  the  truth  which  the 
psalm  emphasizes,  and  that  which  it  ignores. 


THE  NINETY-FIRST  PSALM  103 

Seventh  Day:  ^ucfitions 

1.  Does  your  faith  in  God  give  you  a  real  sense  of  security  in 
life? 

2.  Has  your  faith  ever  enabled  you  to  face  difficulty  or  danger 
without  fear? 

3.  "I  will  be  with  him  in  trouble."  The  consciousness  of  the 
divine  presence  in  trouble  was  undoubtedly  a  great  fact  to  the  man 
who  wrote  these  words ;  is  it  to  you  ? 

4.  A  young  missionary  dies  of  cholera  in  India.  Another  is 
cruelly  martyred  in  China.  How  do  such  facts  affect  our  interpre- 
tation and  appropriation  of  the  psalm? 

5.  "It  is  all  one.  He  destroys  the  innocent  and  the  guilty  alike." 
So  said  Job  (9:22,  cf.  21:7-16),  in  his  perplexity  and  indignation. 
If  you  are  acquainted  with  this  mood,  consider  some  of  the  facts 
which  produced  it  in  you.  Can  you  point  to  other  facts,  gathered 
from  your  own  personal  observation,  experience,  or  reading,  which 
justify  and  illustrate  the  faith  of  Psalm  91?  In  which  mood — that 
of  Job  9 :  22  or  Ps.  91 — are  you  able  to  do  and  to  be  your  best  ? 
Is  that,  then,  not  the  mood  worth  encouraging? 

6.  Have  you  any  fear?    If  so,  of  what?  and  why? 


STUDY  X 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-SIXTH  PSALM    107 

First  Day  :   CI)e  Cept  of  t\it  pcalm 

When  Jehovah  changed  the  fortunes  of  Zion, 

Like  men  that  dream  were  we. 
Then  was  our  mouth  filled  with  laughter. 

And  our  tongue  with  ringing  cries. 
Then  said  they  among  the  nations, 

"Jehovah  hath  dealt  greatly  with  them." 
Jehovah  dealt  greatly  with  us ; 

We  were  glad. 

O  change  our  fortunes,  Jehovah, 

As  streams  in  the  south. 
They  that  sow  in  tears 

Shall  reap  with  ringing  cries. 
Forth  he  fares  weeping, 

Bearing  the  seed  to  scatter; 
Home,  home  he  comes  with  ringing  cries. 

With  his  arm  full  of  sheaves. 

1.  Commit  the  psalm  to  memory  in  any  version  you  please. 

2.  Meditate  upon  it  carefully,  and  without  the  aid  of  books,  until 
you  have  some  adequate  idea  of  it,  in  detail  and  as  a  whole. 


io8  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Second  Day  :  Ci)e  ^Top  of  EeKemption  (Serfiee  1=3) 

1.  This  psalm  is  one  of  a  little  group  (120-134)  known  as  the 
Songs  of  Ascent.  Of  this  phrase  several  explanations  have  been 
given,  the  most  probable  being  that  they  vi^ere  psalms  sung  on  the 
way  up  to  Jerusalem  by  the  pilgrims  who  went  to  celebrate  the 
great  festivals  of  the  Jewish  church.  The  phrase  has  sometimes 
therefore  been  not  inappropriately  rendered  The  Pilgrim  Psalms. 
Psalm  121,  for  example — 'T  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  to  the  hills" — 
may  have  been  sung  as  they  first  came  within  sight  of  the  moun- 
tains round  about  Jerusalem. 

2.  Though  these  psalms  may  have  been  thus  sung  by  pilgrims, 
the  question  of  their  origin  is  not  thereby  settled.  Many  of  them 
may  have  been,  and  no  doubt  were,  written  for  specific  occasions. 
This  psalm,  for  example,  appears  to  have  been  written  in  times 
of  sorrow,  when  the  fortunes  of  Zion  were  low,  and  seed  was  being 
scattered  upon  unpromising  fields  with  tears. 

3.  But  the  singers  can  look  back  upon  brighter  days,  at  the  mem- 
ory of  which  they  rekindle  their  hope,  though  that  hope  shines 
through  tears.  What  those  happy  days  were,  to  which  they  look 
back  so  wistfully,  we  cannot  say  for  certain ;  for  the  words  rendered 
in  the  Authorized  Version,  "When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  cap- 
tivity of  Zion,"  should  almost  certainly  be  rendered,  "When  Jehovah 
changed  the  fortunes  of  Zion."  At  the  same  time  the  redemption 
which  filled  their  mouth  with  laughter  and  their  tongue  with  ringing 
shouts  was,  in  all  probability,  their  deliverance  from  the  Babylonian 
captivity.  No  other  event  seems  large  enough  to  fit  the  wild  joy 
of  the  psalm. 

4.  The  singers  find  it  impossible  to  express  that  joy.  Their  de- 
liverance was  like  a  beautiful  dream — too  good  to  be  true.  They 
speak  with  the  voice  of  astonished  gratitude.  The  long  night  of 
exile  had  passed,  the  day  of  redemption  had  come.  They  had 
reached  the  holy  city  and  trodden  its  ancient  streets  once  more. 
For  very  joy  they  could  hardly  believe  their  eyes.  It  was  all  like  a 
dream.  We  can  fancy  them  moving  wistfully  about  from  point  to 
point,  fearful  lest  they  should  break  the  spell,  and  then  bursting  into 
a  hymn  of  praise,  when  they  had  assured  their  weary  hearts  that 
the  dream  was  a  living  fact. 

5.  Nay,  not  only  is  their  own  mouth  filled  with  laughter  and  their 
tongue  with  singing,  but  the  very  heathen  are  dramatically  repre- 
sented by  the  poet  as  acknowledging  in  Israel's  redemption  the 
marvelous  interposition  of  her  God.  "Jehovah  hath  dealt  greatly 
with  them."  That  Israel  should  acknowledge  this  was  but  natural ; 
that  the  heathen  should  acknowledge  it  would  be  peculiarly  wel- 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-SIXTH  PSALM    109 

come.  It  would  show  how  conspicuous  and  undeniable  that  de- 
liverance was.  What  the  heathen  said  was  always  a  matter  of  im- 
portance and  anxiety  to  Israel.  Any  loss  of  national  prestige  meant 
the  loss  of  prestige  to  her  God ;  and  there  was  no  reproach  she 
feared  so  much  as  that  the  heathen  should  say,  "Where  is  thy  God?" 
(Ps.  42:3;  cf.  Numbers  14:  15,  16). 

6.  The  confession  that  has  just  fallen  from  heathen  lips  is  taken 
up  by  grateful  Israel,  and  shouted  across  the  hills  of  Judah: 
"Jehovah  hath  dealt  greatly  with  us."  This  is  a  simple  statement 
of  sober  historical  fact.  In  the  exile  and  the  deliverance  from  it, 
a  great  divine  purpose  was  being  worked  out  for  Israel,  and  through 
Israel  for  the  world.  The  returned  exiles  could  not  know  all  that 
their  God  intended  by  his  strange  discipline  of  them,  and  his  still 
more  strange  deliverance  of  them.  As  they  looked  back  upon  it  all, 
they  could  only  compare  themselves  to  dreamers.  But  they  knew 
that  their  redemption  was  real,  and  that  they  were  happy  beyond 
all  imagination:  and  with  that  strong,  charming  simplicity  which 
we  have  already  met  so  often  in  our  study  of  the  psalms,  they  say, 
with  a  sincerity  all  the  more  profound  that  it  is  absolutely  un- 
adorned, "We  were  glad." 


no  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Third  Day:  &ope  ioottfi  €^xans^  Cearful  €pe6  (Sfwee  4  6) 

1.  The  transition  from  verse  3  to  verse  4  is  peculiarly  abrupt. 
"We  were  glad.  *  *  *  Q  change  our  fortunes."  They  were 
glad,  but  clearly  they  are  so  now  no  more.  Some  scholars  consider 
that  the  misery,  out  of  the  depths  of  which  the  Psalmist  here  prays, 
fell  a  long  time,  perhaps  even  four  centuries,  after  the  exile,  re- 
demption from  which  is  celebrated  in  verses  1-3.  But  in  so  short 
a  psalm,  that  seems  hardly  probable.  Apparently,  therefore,  we  must 
assume  throughout  the  psalm  that  the  memory  of  the  exile  and  the 
restoration  is  still  fresh,  and  we  must  bring  the  psalm  down  to  a 
few  years,  perhaps  about  twenty,  after  the  return. 

2.  This  time  would  well  suit  the  melancholy  and  disheartened 
mood  of  the  last  half  of  the  psalm.  It  was  a  period  of  sorrow  and 
disillusionment.  The  brilliant  hopes  with  which  the  Jews  came 
back  from  the  land  of  their  captivity  had  not  been  realized.  They 
came  back  to  a  dismantled  city  and  a  ruined  temple;  and  even 
nature  seemed  to  have  conspired  with  history  against  them.  The 
land  had  suffered  from  a  severe  drought  (Haggai  1:11),  which  had 
heightened  the  misery  and  the  apathy  of  the  people.  Their  disap- 
pointment is  reflected  in  the  pathetic  words  of  Haggai  (1:9)— they 
"looked  for  much,  and  behold !  little." 

3.  In  such  a  situation,  therefore,  with  daring  hopes  so  rudely 
crushed,  no  prayer  could  be  more  natural  than  this:  "O  change 
our  fortunes,  Jehovah,  as  streams  in  the  south."  The  south  land, 
or  Negeb,  is  the  tract  south  of  Judah  stretching  towards  Egypt. 
In  summer  it  is  mostly  barren  as  the  streams  are  dry;  but  they  fill 
again  with  the  autumn  rains,  and  vegetation  springs  up.  The 
singers,  whose  strength  and  hope  are  dried  up,  pray  that  they  may 
be  refreshed  as  the  south  land  is  refreshed  and  redeemed  by  the 
streams  of  water — a  very  suggestive  picture. 

4.  Verse  5  may  be  a  continuation  of  the  prayer:  "As  for  those 
who  sow  in  tears,  may  they  reap  with  ringing  cries."  But  it  seems 
better  to  interpret  it  as  a  sublime  assertion  of  faith,  which  interrupts, 
rebukes,  and  answers  the  despondent  prayer  just  offered.  "Those 
who  sow  in  tears,  do  reap  or  shall  reap  with  ringing  cries."  This 
principle  is  clear  and  sure  to  faith,  and  gives  sweet  comfort  amid 
tears.  The  efforts  of  the  returned  Jews  to  reorganize  their  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  life,  hampered  as  they  were  by  misfortune  and 
opposition,  were  like  a  tearful  sowing  upon  stubborn  soil;  but  they 
saw  the  harvest  afar  off. 

5.  This  touching  picture  the  Psalmist  elaborates  with  great  power : 
the  sower  goes  forth  with  seed  which  he  sows  in  tears ;  he  comes 
back  with  jubilation,  because  his  arm  is  full  of  sheaves.    The  joy  of 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-SIXTH  PSALM    in 

the  harvest  is  proverbial,  and  such  is  the  joy  that  is  evermore  set 
before  those  who  sow  in  patience  and  fidelity,  though  it  be  also  in 
tears. 


112  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Fourth  Day  :  W^t  Jfleggagfe  of  i)^t  J}galm  for  SSis 

1.  This  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  songs  in  literature.  It 
traverses  swiftly,  but  in  images  of  surpassing  beauty,  the  strange 
vicissitudes  of  human  life — its  laughter  and  tears,  sorrow  and  joy, 
dejection  and  exaltation,  exile  and  redemption,  spring  and  autumn, 
the  beautiful  dream,  and  the  cruel  reality;  but  the  sorrow  of  il  all 
is  swallowed  up  in  the  lovely  vision  with  which  it  ends — of  the 
harvesters  coming  home  with  shouts  of  joy,  their  arms  full  of 
sheaves. 

2.  The  men  who  sang  this  psalm  had  passed  through  an  experience 
of  redemption.  They  knew  and  confessed  that  their  God  had  done 
great  things  for  them ;  and  they  were  at  once  humbled,  grateful  and 
glad.  They  moved  about  as  one  in  a  dream,  because  they  could  not 
trust  themselves  to  think  that  so  good  a  thing  was  true.  And  they 
were  so  happy  that  they  could  find  no  words  to  express  their  joy. 
Their  mouth  was  filled  with  laughter,  their  tongue  with  ringing 
shouts;  but  all  they  could  say  was,  "We  were  glad."  That  is  all; 
but,  on  the  lips  of  sincere  men,  that  is  everything. 

3.  Have  we  any  such  experience  of  redemption  which  enables  us, 
even  afar  off,  to  appreciate  the  rapturous  joy  of  the  psalm?  Have 
we  ever  been  delivered  from  anxiety,  from  disappointment,  from 
defeat,  from  danger,  from  oppression,  from  sorrow,  from  evil  habits, 
from  sin,  from  death?  And  if  we  have,  do  we  acknowledge  our 
Redeemer?  and  are  we  grateful  and  glad  for  our  redemption?  and 
have  our  sluggish  hearts  ever  been  moved  to  say,  "The  Lord  has 
done  great  things  for  me;  I  am  glad"?  And  if  we  have  never  made 
such  a  confession,  or  known  such  joy,  are  we  quite  sure  that  we 
have  been  redeemed  indeed? 

4.  Again,  the  psalm  reminds  us  of  the  duty  of  hope.  Men  to 
whom  the  dream  of  redemption  has  become  a  fact,  may  look  to  the 
future  through  eyes  blinded  by  tears;  but  they  see  afar  off  the 
golden  harvest,  and  to  the  listening  ear  the  shouts  of  the  merry 
harvesters  are  borne  back  from  the  future  days,  as  they  bring  their 
sheaves,  in  armfuls,  home.  In  days  of  disappointment,  this  is  a 
consolation  of  which  no  one  can  ever  allow  himself  to  be  robbed 
who  truly  believes  in  God — that  no  honest  effort  is  ever  in  vain,  that 
in  due  time  the  faithful  worker  will  reap,  if  he  faint  not — if  not  in 
this  world,  then  in  some  other.  No  seed  is  ever  flung  from  any  faith- 
ful hand  in  vain.  In  God's  good  time,  if  not  in  ours,  it  will  spring 
up  and  bear  its  destmed  fruit.  In  this  world,  sometimes  one  sows 
and  it  is  another  that  reaps;  but  God  is  as  mindful  of  the  sower  as 
of  the  reaper,  and  one  day — how  far  away  we  know  not — he  that 
soweth  and  he  that  reapeth  shall  rejoice  together. 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-SIXTH  PSALM    113 

Fifth  Day  :  J)arapl)ra6e  of  tl)e  JJeialm 

When  Jehovah  changed  the  fortunes  of  Zion,  it  seemed  like  a 
beautiful  dream — too  fair  to  be  true.  Then  we  broke  into  shouts 
of  happy  laughter.  The  very  heathen  pointed  to  us  as  a  people 
whose  God  had  dealt  greatly  with  them  ;  and  we  ourselves  took  up 
the  word,  "Jehovah  hath  dealt  greatly  with  us,"  and  we  were  very 
glad. 

O  God,  why  is  it  so  different  now?  Change  our  fortunes 
again,  we  beseech  thee,  as  thou  dost  fill  the  brooks  in  the  dry  south 
land  with  streams  of  autumn  rain. 

Yea,  despite  all  seeming,  I  know  that  thou  wilt  hear  our  prayer. 
Now  we  sow  in  sadness,  but  one  day  we  shall  reap  with  shouts  of 
joy.  With  tear-stained  faces  forth  we  go,  bearing  the  seed  to 
scatter;  but  in  God's  good  time,  we  shall  surely  come  home,  with 
our  arms  full  of  sheaves. 

Explain  to  yourself  every  phrase  of  the  psalm  in  thoroughly 
modern  and  unconventional  language. 

The  success  of  your  effort  will  be  best  tested  by  writing  a  para- 
phrase of  your  own. 


114  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

Sixth  Day  :  (Butations  an5  joints  for  ConfiiKeration 

1.  How  do  you  explain  the  apparently  sudden  change  of  mood  in 
this  psalm? 

Can  you  give  any  other  illustration  from  the  Psalter  of  a  similar 
change?     (cf.  Ps.  85  and  95.) 

Have  you  ever  had  a  similar  experience  of  your  own? 

2.  Israel  had  a  definite  historical  experience  of  redemption  in  her 
deliverance  from  the  Babylonian  captivity. 

Have  you  any  experience  of  redemption? 

From  what  have  you  been  redeemed,  and  what  have  you  gained 
by  your  redemption  ? 

Has  it  made  you  very  glad?  Does  your  experience  of  it  enable 
you  to  understand  the  abounding  joy  of  verses  1-3? 

Is  your  redemption  so  real  that  others  are  struck  by  it? 

Is  there  a  sense  in  which  your  redemption  is  incomplete?  What 
do  you  anticipate  from  the  future? 

3.  In  disappointment  are  you  patient  and  hopeful? 

4.  In  what  sense  is  it  right  to  live  in  the  future?  Is  this  mood  a 
hindrance  or  an  inspiration  to  present  activity? 

5.  Can  you  illustrate,  from  your  own  experience  or  observation 
or  from  missionary  annals,  the  following  truths : 

(a)  One  sows,  another  reaps; 

(b)  They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy? 

6.  "I  know  how  wicked  my  heart  has  been.  But  I  knew  you 
would  come  back.  And  to-day,  Henry,  in  the  anthem,  when  they 
sang  it,  'When  the  Lord  turned  the  captivity  of  Zion,  we  were  like 
them  that  dream,'  I  thought  yes,  like  them  that  dream — them  that 
dream.  And  then  it  went,  'They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in 
joy;  and  he  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  shall  doubtless  come 
again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with  him;'  I  looked  up 
from  the  book  and  saw  you.  I  knew  you  would  come,  my  dear, 
and  saw  the  gold  sunshine  round  your  head."  She  smiled  an 
almost  wild  smile  as  she  looked  up  at  him.  *  *  *  "Now — now 
you  are  come  again,  bringing  your  sheaves  with  you,  my  dear." 
She  burst  into  a  wild  flood  of  weeping  as  she  spoke;  she  laughed 
and  sobbed  on  the  young  man's  heart,  crying  out  wildly,  "bringing 
your  sheaves  with  you — ^your  sheaves  with  you!" — (Thackeray, 
Esmond,  Book  II,  ch.  vi.) 

7.  'T  remember  the  morning  on  which  I  came  out  of  my  room 
after  I  had  first  trusted  Christ.  I  thought  the  old  sun  shone  a  good 
deal  brighter  than  it  ever  had  before — I  thought  that  it  was  just 
smiling  upon  me;  and  as  I  walked  out  upon  Boston  Common  and 
heard  the  birds  singing  in  the  trees,  I  thought  they  were  all  singing 


THE  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-SIXTH  PSALM    115 

a  song  to  me.  Do  you  know,  I  fell  in  love  with  the  birds.  I  had 
never  cared  for  them  before.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  in  love 
with  all  creation." — (Moody's  account  of  the  effect  of  his  conversion 
in  The  Life  of  D.  L.  Moody,  by  IV.  R.  Moody,  p.  42.) 

8.  "For  three  years  we  had  toiled  and  prayed  and  taught  for  this. 
At  the  moment  when  I  put  the  bread  and  wine  into  those  dark  hands, 
once  stained  with  the  blood  of  Cannibalism,  now  stretched  out  to 
receive  and  partake  the  emblems  and  seals  of  the  Redeemer's  love, 
I  had  a  foretaste  of  the  joy  of  glory  that  well  nigh  broke  my  heart 
to  pieces.  *  *  *  Seven  of  the  new  Church  members  led  in  prayer 
to  Jesus,  a  hymn  being  sung  betwixt  each.  My  heart  was  so  full  of 
joy  that  I  could  do  little  else  but  weep." — {John  G.  Paton,  An  Auto- 
biography, 2nd  part,  p.  223.) 


ii6  TEN  STUDIES  IN  THE  PSALMS 

PSALMS  I,  II,  22,  39,  48,  49,  52,  90,  91,  126 
Seventh  Day  :  Ecbieto  of  tl)e  Cen  J}fialmfli  S)tttUieIi 

1.  Has  the  study  of  these  psalms  brought  any  conscious  gain  to 
your  spiritual  life?    If  so,  in  what  direction? 

2.  What  is  it  that  gives  the  psalms  their  unique  place  in  religious 
literature? 

Mention  some  of  the  broad  differences  between  the  psalms  and  a 
modern  hymn-book. 

Which  hymns,  if  any,  do  you  think  worthy  to  be  compared  with 
the  best  of  the  psalms  ?     Give  reasons  for  your  opinion. 

3.  Reconstruct,  so  far  as  the  material  permits  it,  the  Hebrew  life 
which  is  the  background  of  these  psalms. 

4.  What  conception  of  God  underlies  these  psalms?  Is  God  as 
real  and  present  to  you  as  the  psalmists  felt  him  to  be  to  them? 

5.  Can  you  appropriate  to  yourself  the  words  of  Psalm  23?  If 
not,  what  hinders  you  ? 

6.  Can  you  sustain  your  deepest  spiritual  life  on  the  psalms,  or 
do  you  miss  in  them  any  element  which  is  supplied  by  the  New 
Testament?     If  so,  what? 

7.  What  thoughts  do  these  psalms  suggest  about  money,  work, 
faith,  hope,  joy,  persecution,  the  future? 

8.  Do  the  following  words  come  home  to  you  with  more  power 
than  before  you  began  these  studies  in  the  psalms  ? 

(i)  On  his  law  doth  he  meditate  day  and  night. 

(ii)  Jehovah's  throne  is  in  heaven. 

(iii)  I  will  fear  no  evil. 

(iv)  My  hope  is  in  thee. 

(v)  Beautiful  is  Mount  Zion. 

(vi)  He  will  receive  me. 

(vii)  The  goodness  of  God  endureth  continually, 
(viii)  Teach  us  to  number  our  days. 

(ix)  He  will  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee. 

(x)  We  were  like  them  that  dream. 


BS1430.8.M14 

Ten  studies  in  the  Psalms, 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00012  3754 


i 


